Cadmium and lead in Superman and Wonder Woman drinking glasses

Lab tests commissioned by the Associated Press found that drinking glasses depicting comic book characters such as Superman contain elevated levels of lead and cadmium. The tests were conducted following McDonald’s voluntary recall of 12 million Shrek glasses this past summer because cadmium was thought to be capable of leaching from the design at unsafe levels. (The CPSC last month revised its cadmium level limit upward, suggesting that the recall was unnecessary). Federal regulators have since been concerned that lead and cadmium might shed from the glasses onto the hands of children, who might ultimately ingest the residues. The results conclude that the lead levels in the glass exceed the federal safety limit by more than 1000-fold while the “even-more-dangerous” cadmium levels were found to be “relatively high.”

“Ever since lead content was severely restricted in children’s products, thanks to unlawful Chinese imports and the CPSIA law passed in 2008, cadmium has become the devil substance in such products. We have done a literature search, and the evidence of cadmium’s toxicity is sketchy at such exposures,” said ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. “I have no issue with the regulations, but having various groups calling every substance with any toxicity at all ‘the most dangerous chemical known to man’ is getting harder and harder to swallow — no pun intended.”