Lighter Hearts

Valentine's Day traditionally means hearts heavy with chocolate--not lead. Yet in March 2006, Dagoba Chocolate recalled several lines of their organic chocolate bars due to contamination by the brain-damaging heavy metal at levels higher than the FDA's so-called "safe" limit of 0.5 parts per million (ppm). Dagoba tracked the source down to new solder used on a grinding machine, and is "no longer working with that facility," says Melissa Schweisguth, communications spokesperson. But that didn't solve a broader, industry-wide problem.

In 2005, a chocolate industry test of 137 samples from seven milk chocolate products and 226 samples from nine dark chocolate products found that dark chocolate had lead levels that went as high as 0.275 ppm, while milk chocolate contained up to 0.222 ppm. Although, as this study confirmed, lead levels in chocolate rarely get as high as 0.5 ppm, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Total Diet Study of 382 foods found that milk chocolate bars ranked in third place along with beef liver, with average lead levels of .025 ppm. Sweet cucumber pickles ranked higher, but most kids, whose developing nervous systems are at risk from lead, will pick chocolate over liver and pickles any day.

This heavy metal can cause enduring harm to learning abilities, behavior and even coordination: A study published in the October 2006 Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teenagers who'd had high lead levels as children were more prone to falls and injuries. This doesn't mean we should deny our children the joys of chocolate: Old paint, dust, soil and water pipes are by far the principal sources of lead exposure. However, "All the lead sources that children are exposed to are cumulative, and since there is no safe limit for intake of lead, it behooves us to reduce our intake of lead in all sources," says Bruce Lanphear, M.D., M.P.H., director of Cincinnati Children's Environmental Health Center. Compared with keeping children's environments free of lead paint flakes and dust, eating less chocolate is a minor way to cut back on exposures, but every little bit helps. Lanphear has argued that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control should lower its action levels for lead in blood. Noting that it has found no threshold for exposure below which there are no harmful effects, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not set a "safe" dose for lead intake.

The FDA is now considering whether to revise guidelines for all candies likely to be eaten by children ages one to six, reducing permitted lead levels down to 0.1 ppm, which is still above average lead levels for dark and milk chocolate. Using the lead level ranges provided by industry and FDA research, the FDA determined that small children's lead intake from chocolate, based on the 0.1 ppm guideline, would be within the limits of their "total tolerable intake level." Reducing permitted lead levels to 0.1 ppm would, according to the FDA, lower the children's lead intake even more.