Welcome to CPSC’s Podcast for Friday, October 26, 2007. I’m Patty Davis.

[Patty:] This week, CPSC released a study on lead test kits that are available in many stores. CPSC staff found that commonly available lead test kits are unreliable. CPSC’s Director of Public Affairs Julie Vallese joins me to talk about the results. How unreliable are lead test kits?

[Julie:] Patty, we found false positives. We found false negatives. And we tested knowing in some cases that there was lead present. And these home lead test kits just did not do a good job in letting consumers know, letting us know whether or not there was lead.

[Patty:] Most lead test kits were developed to detect levels of lead in household paint. Why is that important?

[Julie:] It’s important because many consumers are using these to test other products. The chemistry and the science behind these lead test kits was not designed to test common household consumer products. They were designed to test for lead in paint.

[Patty:] Now the staff also looked at the use of x-ray fluorescence – or XRF – for screening for lead in paint and other products. What did they find?

[Julie:] The staff found that those tests were much more reliable. But what consumers need to understand is an XRF machine costs $30,000, if not more. It takes a very highly trained professional to run one of these. So these kind of testing devices are not available to the average consumer.

[Patty:] So leave it to the pros. What should a consumer do if they are concerned about lead levels in a toy or in another product? Is there a way to test it? What should they do?

[Julie:] The only way that you can actually test is to take it to a certified lab. But the reason behind these recalls is they violate laws. We do not know of any public health risk from any one of these individual toys. And the real place parents should be concerned is if they have a house that was built before 1978, then there’s a good chance that they have lead paint in their home and that’s the paint that they really want to identify.

[Patty:] How can consumers find out if they have products that have lead paint in their home?

[Julie:] Consumers can go to the CPSC Web site, which is cpsc.gov or they can sign up for direct email notification of CPSC announcements – recall announcements – and stay on top of all the products, not just lead-related products that the CPSC recalls.

[Patty:] Thanks Julie. You can find out more about lead test kits and recalls announced by CPSC at our Web site, www.cspc.gov. That’s it for this week’s podcast. Thanks for listening.

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