Kmart Corp said it will remove all costume jewelry labeled as "lead free" and sold throughout the US after some of the pieces were found to contain the metal.
Most of the jewelry is part of the Accessories brand line, said Kimberly Freely, a spokeswoman for Sears Holdings Corp, Kmart's parent company, in an interview on Saturday from Chicago.
"We removed the jewelry from our Kmart stores nationwide out of an abundance of caution and to keep consumers from being confused," Freely said.
One charm tested by Karla Johnson, manager of the Lead-Safe and Healthy Homes Program of the Marion County Health Department in Indiana, was found to be 52 percent lead.
Johnson discovered the lead in the jewelry after she bought her 18-month-old daughter earrings and a necklace at her local Kmart about a month ago. She tested the jewelry with a hand-held X-ray fluorescent lead analyzer, provided by her job.
As soon as Johnson learned about the lead content she said she contacted Kmart.
When she didn't get a response, she enlisted the help of her friend Janet McCabe, the executive director of Improving Kids' Environment, a nonprofit group that works on lead poisoning and other issues affecting children.
"There's just been so much in the news about high lead content in children's toys and products, we had to do something," McCabe said in an interview.
McCabe bought about 20 sets of jewelry in another Kmart in Indianapolis, some labeled "lead free" and others not. The "lead-free" jewelry had more lead, on average, than the unmarked sets.
Kmart has 1,416 stores in 49 states, Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, according to the company's Web site.
The New York Times reported on the lead in the jewelry earlier.
SECURITY: As China is ‘reshaping’ Hong Kong’s population, Taiwan must raise the eligibility threshold for applications from Hong Kongers, Chiu Chui-cheng said When Hong Kong and Macau citizens apply for residency in Taiwan, it would be under a new category that includes a “national security observation period,” Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. President William Lai (賴清德) on March 13 announced 17 strategies to counter China’s aggression toward Taiwan, including incorporating national security considerations into the review process for residency applications from Hong Kong and Macau citizens. The situation in Hong Kong is constantly changing, Chiu said to media yesterday on the sidelines of the Taipei Technology Run hosted by the Taipei Neihu Technology Park Development Association. With
‘FORM OF PROTEST’: The German Institute Taipei said it was ‘shocked’ to see Nazi symbolism used in connection with political aims as it condemned the incident Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 yesterday amid an outcry over a Nazi armband he wore to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case on Tuesday night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and apparently covering the book with a coat. This is a serious international scandal and Chinese
A US Marine Corps regiment equipped with Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) is set to participate in the upcoming Balikatan 25 exercise in the Luzon Strait, marking the system’s first-ever deployment in the Philippines. US and Philippine officials have separately confirmed that the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) — the mobile launch platform for the Naval Strike Missile — would take part in the joint exercise. The missiles are being deployed to “a strategic first island chain chokepoint” in the waters between Taiwan proper and the Philippines, US-based Naval News reported. “The Luzon Strait and Bashi Channel represent a critical access
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE TRAINING: The ministry said 87.5 percent of the apprehended Chinese agents were reported by service members they tried to lure into becoming spies Taiwanese organized crime, illegal money lenders, temples and civic groups are complicit in Beijing’s infiltration of the armed forces, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in a report yesterday. Retired service members who had been turned to Beijing’s cause mainly relied on those channels to infiltrate the Taiwanese military, according to the report to be submitted to lawmakers ahead of tomorrow’s hearing on Chinese espionage in the military. Chinese intelligence typically used blackmail, Internet-based communications, bribery or debts to loan sharks to leverage active service personnel to do its bidding, it said. China’s main goals are to collect intelligence, and develop a
RSS