KING COUNTY, Wash. — More than a year after warnings from King County public health officials, major online retailers continue to sell cookware that contains potentially dangerous amounts of lead, according to a KING 5 Investigation.
In May of 2022, a research team at King County’s Hazardous Waste Management program published a report showing that many imported aluminum pots and pans available on websites like Amazon are manufactured with lead.
The researchers warned major retailers like Amazon and Etsy about their findings.
In June of this year, KING 5 ordered several imported aluminum pots from Amazon and Etsy. Subsequent tests by the health department and the University of Washington showed lead in six of the seven cookpots.
“There is no safe level of lead exposure,” said Dr. Steve Whittaker, one of the researchers from King County’s Hazardous Waste Management Program. He said lead in cookware is especially dangerous for children who can suffer neurological damage.
The products are marketed as aluminum, but the scientists suspect that foreign manufacturers often use recycled metal that contains lead.
The researchers recommend that consumers purchase stainless steel products, instead of imported aluminum cookware.
Some of the aluminum pots KING 5 purchased did not contain lead in their cooking surfaces, but it was detected in other parts.
A 2-quart Bene Casa brand cauldron that was advertised as “heavy weight cast aluminum” contained lead in its handles, according to Dr. Katie Fellows, the King County scientist who tested it for KING 5.
The handles contained 363 parts per million lead, according to Fellows. “No amount of lead exposure is safe,” she said, explaining that even lead on handles and other hardware has the potential to end up in food.
“Any amount of lead in cookware is too much. There’s no need for it to be present in cookware,” Fellows said.
A Tanish Trading company frying pay was among the highest in lead content from KING 5’s purchases. The bowl contained 523 parts per million lead.
Dr. Fellows called it unsafe.
“Any cookware that contains measurable amounts of lead has the potential to leach into your food and that is not good,” she said.
TMT Ecommerce Services, the vendor that sold the pan on Amazon, said its tests showed that “Only the handles are metal” and that they “tested it (and) it is not dangerous.”
Again, KING 5’s test showed lead content in the bowl and cooking surface of the Tanish Trading pan.
Etsy did not respond to KING 5’s repeated messages seeking comment.
But the vendor that sold a pancake pan through Etsy did reply. A spokesperson for Proudly India wrote, “Due to the recent reports on indolium and Etsy recommended us to stop (selling) indolium items we stopped (selling) indolium items on Etsy and we already ended our contract with our production partner Lakshmi Metals”.
KING 5 contacted Amazon about five lead-tainted pots purchased from its site.
In reply, an Amazon spokesperson said, “Safety is a top priority at Amazon. We require all products offered in our store to comply with applicable laws, regulations, and Amazon policies. We monitor the products in our store for safety concerns, and when appropriate, remove products, reach out to sellers, manufacturers, and government agencies for additional information, or take other actions. If customers have concerns about an item they’ve purchased, we encourage them to contact our Customer Service directly so we can investigate and help resolve their issue.”
The spokesperson did not respond when asked if Amazon removed the tainted items identified by KING 5.
An Amazon vendor, Aramco Imports Inc, said it would investigate the content of its Alpine Cuisine Aluminum Caldero Stockpot, after being contacted by KING 5. “I just requested that the Chinese manufacturer do thorough testing to see what is hazardous or harmful,” said company president Viken Soulahian. He said he thought the pot was entirely aluminum, as advertised. He pledged to get to the bottom of it.
Vendor CeylonMall2 said it would investigate along with its manufacturer.
In May, Amazon removed several Afghan pressure cookers from its website after KING 5 reported that King County health officials suspected the traditional aluminum cookpots were the source of high levels of lead poisoning found in the blood of immigrants from Afghanistan. Those high lead levels, discovered five years ago during routine medical exams for newly arrived immigrants, triggered a years-long investigation into the source by health authorities and the non-profit Afghan Health Initiative.
When researchers finally uncovered the Afghan pressure cookers as the source of the lead poisoning, they began testing other imported aluminum cookware for comparison.
Although the lead levels were not as high, the research team found lead present in several imported aluminum pots and pans. An Indian alloy called hindalium or indolium, which is similar to aluminum, consistently tested positive for lead, according to researchers. They also found South American and Chinese manufactured cooking products that contain lead.
King County also partnered with local immigrant organizations to get the word out about potentially dangerous cookware. Websites like Amazon allow consumers to easily order products that are a world away, and some of those products may not be up to the standards of domestic cookware.
“We learned from (county) testing events that some of these items have tested positive for lead,” said Nura Adam, Executive Director of the Immigrant Women Community Center in Redmond. Her organization invited members of the community to bring in traditional products like plates, jewelry, and cookware to testing events so that King County health experts could analyze them for lead content.
That’s how she learned that a set of plates that she had used for more than two decades contained lead. “I was pretty surprised,” Adam said. “And now I’ve been telling my children we need to be careful.”
King County has also been pressing the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take more action. The FDA placed an “import alert” on Rashko Baba, the company in Afghanistan that is the foremost manufacturer of Afghan pressure cookers.
But King County officials believe the FDA needs to create manufacturing standards for all aluminum cooking products, similar to the requirements for the manufacture of ceramics which have been known to contain lead.
After Public Health of Seattle/King County raised concerns, the US Food and Drug Administration placed “import alerts” earlier this year on two firms that manufacture Afghan pressure cookers. This effectively prevents the companies from shipping their goods to the U.S. The King County research team has also corresponded with the FDA about other types of imported aluminum cookware.
However, an FDA spokesperson did not provide a response to several questions about the administration’s plans for those products.