Worries About Lead for New York City’s Garden-Fresh Eggs
TO the long list of food conundrums, add this one: new research has found elevated levels of lead in eggs from chickens in New York City’s public neighborhood gardens.
Preliminary results from a New York State study show that more than half of the eggs tested from chickens kept in community gardens in Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens had detectable levels of lead, unlike their store-bought counterparts. While lead is a naturally occurring element that is gets ingested in a variety of ways, it has been well established to be harmful to humans, even in very low quantities.
Henry M. Spliethoff, a research scientist in the Bureau of Toxic Substance Assessment for the environmental health center of the State Health Department, tested 58 eggs from chickens living in New York City gardens and found that 28 of them contained lead in amounts of 10 to 73 parts per billion, with one egg having more than 100 parts per billion.
How to regard those results is a complicated question. If anything, they show how, as the gospel of locavorism has spread, so, too, have questions about the safety of eating food cultivated in neighborhoods where previous revolutions were industrial, not epicurean.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/dining/worries-about-lead-for-new-yorks-garden-fresh-eggs.html
Seems that meat or any other animal food is like politics: the lesser of two evils. Factory farmed eggs are likely to contain dioxin or salmonella. And then this study finding lead from garden-fresh eggs. Similarly, superbugs and other pathogens and pollution spread from factory farmed meat, but even wild meat has health risks like trichinosis.
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Hello - My name is Tamara Rubin, I am the mother of lead poisoned children that is quoted in the New York Times article. I am also the founder of the Lead Safe America Foundation.
The important point that was not mentioned in the article is that lead poisoning (even in very trace amounts - and yes trace amounts DO amount to poisoning) causes permanent brain damage in young children, brain damage leading to learning disabilities, behavioral disorders and other life-long health challenges (ADD, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Symptons, etc.) It doesn't take "eating paint chips" to poison a child - just a microscopic amount of lead could do it... like the amount found in many of the eggs that were tested.
If that's not enough to scare you (and by scare you - I mean encourage you to test your soil before you consider making an urban garden or keeping urban chickens) - lead poisoning in adults can cause kidney failure, heart disease, early onset Alzheimer's and the fun one... reproductive disorders - including erectile dysfunction! (Most people pay attention to that one 
Please take care of yourselves and your children by getting your soil tested, getting your home tested and getting your children tested.
For more information about the issue:
I am making a documentary feature film about the subject and have posted some of my rough-cut sample footage (including clips from my interview with Noam Chomsky) here: http://www.MisleadMovie.com
On my personal advocacy site I have an entire section about lead and chicken eggs (it has been up since 2009) http://www.MyChildrenHaveLeadPoisoning.com
If you would like a free test-kit to test the paint in your home for lead, click the "like" button on my Facebook page and send me a message on that page with your mailing address: http://www.Facebook.com/MisleadMovie - I also post pictures there of household objects that I test for lead and I am happy to answer any questions about the subject on that page.
....and if you want to make a difference you can help get the word out by making a tax-deductible contribution in support of my advocacy work and my film at http://www.LeadSafeAmerica.org or making a pledge on our Kickstarter project: http://kck.st/Qv0lbL
Thank you.
Tamara Rubin
Executive Director
Lead Safe America
