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Jewelry Safety

June 8, 2010

New FJATA White Paper – September 29, 2010
“Cadmium in Jewelry: Myths and Reality”
Read

The top priority of FJATA member companies is the safety of consumers. Our members stepped forward to address lead in jewelry, and supported legislation establishing limits on lead in children’s and adult jewelry based on both science and technical feasibility. Our members not only comply with new lead standards and other new safety regulations contained in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), many also voluntarily test for other metals like cadmium.

Safety is always our number one concern and our products are safe. We support national standards for safe jewelry. We have created a Safety Task Force, and are working with retail and industry groups, and expert toxicologists and metallurgists, to develop a robust, science-based national standard. As part of this work we are in close contact with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), who itself is reviewing the issue in accordance with its existing authority under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (FHSA).

About Cadmium in Jewelry
FJATA is disappointed in recent media reports attacking our industry regarding cadmium in jewelry. Our products are safe and, contrary to inaccurate media reports, cadmium is not being widely substituted for lead in children’s jewelry. However, it is important to understand that safe levels of cadmium have existed in fashion and fine jewelry (both adult and children’s jewelry) for decades without attracting attention or causing a public health concern because there are no reported adverse health effects in either children or adults from its presence.

 Why is there cadmium in jewelry? Cadmium is found in metal components such as zinc or tin that is used to make fashion jewelry. This includes precious metal jewelry such as karat gold jewelry and sterling silver jewelry, where cadmium is a component in solders used in joining jewelry components because these solders melt and flow better at a lower temperature than non-cadmium solders. In addition, with the introduction of green initiatives and use of clean scrap material there exists in the normal course of alloying trace levels of cadmium in precious metals used to make jewelry.

Our industry has closely examined the toy safety standards in the U.S. (ASTM F-963) and Europe (EN-71-3), which address potential exposure to certain substances, including cadmium, by adoption of migration limits. Reliance for many years on this sort of migration standard has helped establish the safety of toys in Europe and in other parts of the world, and is now required in the U.S. for toys. ASTM F-963 was made a mandatory, preemptive federal standard for toys under Section 106 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), and so represents an approach to testing heavy metals in children’s products endorsed by the Congress of the United States.

Many of our members, in fact, test children’s jewelry to meet these toy safety standards, and we support the adoption of a federal standard for children’s jewelry based on these standards, because we care about safety.