Media Release: July 2, 2004
Contact: Leticia Ayala, (619) 235-0281

Corporate greed wins over children’s health in Sacramento — Children continue to be poisoned by lead in candy due to failure of bill
EHC vows to continue fight with Prop. 65 lawsuit

(San Diego) The final death-knell was heard in Sacramento on Wednesday for legislation that would have protected children from consuming candy contaminated with lead. The last Senate Health Committee hearing of this legislative session closed without reconsidering AB 2297, a bill that would have expanded the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act of 1991 to require the Department of Health Services to regulate the lead content of candy and to establish a standard for taking action if candy was contaminated with lead. The bill failed to gain approval of a majority of the committee on June 23, falling one vote short of the seven votes needed.

“This is a shameful display of the triumph of Big Food, Big Oil, Big Tobacco, and Big Corporate Interests over protecting children’s health. Where was the Big Support for California’s children?” stated Leticia Ayala, Director of Environmental Health Coalition’s (EHC) Campaign to Eliminate Childhood Lead Poisoning. “The failure of this bill condemns at least one thousand children to be poisoned during the next year.

AB 2297, sponsored by Assemblyman Juan Vargas and EHC, had already passed by a wide margin in the Assembly and had only two more hearings before reaching the Senate Floor and the Governor’s desk. It failed last week, garnering only six positive votes (Senators Ortiz, Alarcon, Chesbro, Vincent, Escutia and Romero). Two Senators voted no (Battin, Aanestad) and five failed to vote (Kuehl, Florez, Ashburn, Vasconcellos, and Figueroa). The bill was supported by EHC, California Nurses Association, City of Chula Vista, Los Angeles Unified School District, Western States Legal Center on Poverty and the Environment, Planning and Conservation League, Sierra Club, Communities for a Better Environment, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights, Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

Once the bill failed to secure the votes needed at the committee on June 23, Vargas, as the author, had the opportunity to request reconsideration but he did not, so the bill effectively died. “We are shocked that a bill so critical to our children’s health, especially in the Latino community, could fail in a Committee that contained 6 members of the Latino Caucus. If they won’t protect our children, who will?” asked EHC Organizer Luz Palomino. “What can I tell the parents in our neighborhoods except that no one will stand up for our children.”

AB2297 was vigorously opposed by powerful, monied corporate interests, including the Grocery Manufacturers of America, California Paint Council, Kraft Foods, Hershey Food Corp., and the California Manufacturers and Technology Association. A coalition of Mexican candy manufacturers also weighed in heavily against the bill.

“There was a long list of reasons they didn’t support the bill: the domestic food lobby doesn’t want protective levels to apply to them, the gas and paint lobby doesn’t want funding for childhood lead poisoning funds to be used to protect children, and the Mexican candy manufacturers raised claims of unfair trade barriers,” stated Laura Hunter, EHC spokesperson , who testified at the Senate hearing last week. “ It was the most appalling display of corporate greed I had ever seen. Shame on all of them.” The manufacture and consumption of contaminated candy is also poisoning many children in Mexico according to the investigative report by the Orange County Register, which tested blood levels in children.

Current law does not require the Department of Health Services to test candy that may be contaminated with lead. According to citations in the Health Committee staff analysis, over 112 brands of candy, most coming from Mexico, have tested with dangerous levels of lead over the past decade. According to the results of a two-year investigation by the Orange County Register the state has found lead in candy in one out of four times it tests. The state has estimated that as many as 15% of lead poisoned children in the state have eaten leaded candy—about 1,000 children a year. According to records in Orange County, candy was suspected as a source of lead poisoning nearly as often as paint. Statewide 75% of lead-poisonings are Latino children.

Environmental Health Coalition will now focus its effort to seek a remedy through Proposition 65, a law requiring notification to the public of exposure to chemicals that cause cancer and other negative health effects. EHC filed a Notice to Sue to the California Attorney General last month because candy containing lead has no warning label.

“We wish we could count on government to do the right thing to protect our health but this inexcusable action by the California Senate affirms that we can’t. That is why we are taking action to sue the parties that manufacture and distribute leaded candy,” said Diane Takvorian, EHC Executive Director. The Attorney General has 60 days to decide whether or not to pursue an action. “We hope the Attorney General will agree to take action. Our children’s fate is now in his hands. We are counting on him to be the one who cares about our kids,” Takvorian added.

EHC urges the public to speak out on this issue. They are calling on people who care about protecting children to write immediately to the State Attorney General and urge him to take swift action under the rules of Proposition 65 to address leaded candy.

Environmental Health Coalition is a 24 year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to environmental and social justice. For more information visit our web site at www.environmentalhealth.org.

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