Why is there lead in lunchables and some found in feminine products? Is this a by product of production or in the manufacturing? Is lead everywhere? Source for the feminine products https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/07/09/tampons-study-arsenic-lead-metals/74325568007/
In: Chemistry
Atoms and molecules don’t always stick together, they spread out all over the place.
One way to find traces anywhere of very common elements like lead is to test them with increasingly sensitive tests. At some point you are going to find lead.
Note the article never says how much lead was found, just a “measurable” amount. That should always trigger so e skeptcism. We have incredibly sensitive instruments, a “measurable” amount can be a completely insignificant amount.
Plants absorb metals from the soil. If there’s lead in the soil it will show up in the plants grown on it. Rice is often high in arsenic because it absorbs it really well. I imagine for the tampons it’s cotton.
Because we used leaded gasoline for so many years, that now it is everywhere. There products you hear about are the unlucky ones that accumulated more lead from the environment for one reason or another, but that doesn’t mean other products are free of lead.
It is used in metalworking, but more importantly, it had a lot of uses in the past that we no longer use it for, but due to how prolific it was, it has contaminated a lot of, well… everywhere.
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