paris martineau
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paris.nyc
paris martineau
@paris.nyc
24K followers 980 following 1.3K posts
investigative journalist @consumerreports.org‬ • tech podcastin’ @twit.tv • previously @ The Information & Wired • @parismartineau on the other site

send tips: paris@cr.org, or securely via Signal (267.797.8655) or Proton (tips@paris.nyc)

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paris.nyc
no there were three personal injury attorneys who came in shortly after me and kept remarking every time they recognized a famous case
November 8, 2025 at 12:03 AM
paris.nyc
i would highly recommend if you enjoy tort law and/or expertly drawn political cartoons
November 7, 2025 at 11:42 PM
paris.nyc
museum employee: so uh, are you a lawyer or something?

me, after spending a full hour at the american museum of tort law: no just a fan!!!
November 7, 2025 at 11:41 PM
paris.nyc
please don’t ask me how much i spent on merch at the american museum of tort law
November 7, 2025 at 11:38 PM
paris.nyc
said this in the original piece but it bears repeating: there's NO reason to freak out even if you've been taking one of the products with lots of lead.

there's also probably no reason to get a blood lead test. 90%+ of lead in your body ends up in the bones, so those tests likely won't capture it
What Should You Do if You’ve Been Drinking One of These Products for Years? For starters, don’t panic. Long-term use of these products doesn’t mean you’ve harmed yourself. None of the protein supplements CR tested had high enough lead levels to cause immediate health effects, and many are fine for occasional use. (See the chart in CR’s original investigation for specific per-product recommendations.) That being said, given that there is no known safe level of lead, and that you are likely already exposed to unavoidable amounts of it through your food and drink, this might be a good moment to reevaluate your habits and overall risk tolerance. Since experts say the average American already consumes more protein than recommended, you might consider whether supplements are addressing a genuine deficiency or if they are just a convenient habit. If it’s the latter, it may make sense to ask whether these products are worth the added exposure. Should You Get a Blood Lead Test? A doctor familiar with your medical history and applicable risk factors can best assess whether lead testing is right for you. The most common screening method is a blood lead level test, which measures the concentration of lead circulating in the bloodstream. But it doesn’t provide a complete picture. Only a small fraction of the body’s total lead burden travels in the blood. More than 90 percent of absorbed lead is stored in bones, so blood tests often underrepresent the amount of lead in people with repeated or high-level exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means people with chronic exposure to lead can show normal blood lead levels despite carrying a substantial lead burden. Lead accumulates in the bones over decades, and it can be released back into the bloodstream in times of bodily stress—such as during pregnancy, illness, or old age—creating potential health risks long after exposure. That’s one of the reasons CR’s food safety experts believe your exposure to it in the food and water supply should be as low as possible.
November 3, 2025 at 9:42 PM
paris.nyc
some of the companies whose products we tested have tried to debunk our findings by sharing the results of their own tests. while we could certainly both be right, it's worth noting that our tests are conducted independently, use more sensitive techniques than other labs, and feature multiple lots
Why Do Some Protein Powder Makers Say Their Tests Show Less Lead? In the weeks since CR published its investigation, some of the companies whose products we analyzed said their own heavy metal tests showed lower levels of lead. It’s possible that different batches of the same product contain different levels of lead. That said, to ensure our results weren’t skewed by an outlier batch, CR tested multiple samples of each product from two to four distinct “lots” (groups of products manufactured at different times or in different locations). Our findings are based on an average of these samples, all of which were independently sourced and anonymously purchased by CR. The tests were conducted in a laboratory certified to standards set by the International Organization for Standardization for conducting such heavy metal analysis, and the results were analyzed and checked by a team of CR scientists. Additionally, we measured metals like lead using a more sensitive analytical technique called triple-quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, which CR chemist Eric Boring, PhD, says “allows for more sensitive analysis of elements at trace levels and better interference removal compared with more commonly used methods.” In at least some cases where companies were claiming nondetectable levels of lead, their limits of detection were not as sensitive as ours.
November 3, 2025 at 9:35 PM
paris.nyc
side note that didn't make it into the FAQ: the average detectable lead levels in european foods are MUCH higher than what the FDA found and the avg european adult has way higher blood lead levels than the avg american.

it's unclear why this is! maybe related to the timing lead gas phase outs?
November 3, 2025 at 9:29 PM
paris.nyc
But Isn't Lead in Basically Every Food?

not really! recent expansive tests by the FDA found lead in only 15% of foods, and the average lead levels the agency detected in vegetables, fruit, and dairy products was actually far below what we found in protein powders and shakes 🧵 (7/?)
Not quite. It is true that a very wide variety of foods from chicken to kale can contain unavoidable trace amounts of lead because of contamination in the environments where crops are grown and livestock are raised. Protein supplements presumably get some of their lead from the same environmental sources. But the results of CR’s investigation suggest the manufacturing and concentration processes involved in creating powders and shakes may contribute to heightened contamination risks. The most recently available data from the FDA’s food contamination monitoring program provides context: The agency tested thousands of samples of 307 foods (including one protein powder and one meal replacement drink) purchased in stores across the U.S. over the course of three years and found lead in only 15 percent of samples. The highest levels were found in certain baby foods (sweet potatoes and teething biscuits), sandwich cookies, white wine, and low-calorie ranch dressing. The average lead concentrations in vegetables, fruit, and dairy products ranged from not detectable to 12 parts per billion, not detectable to 9.7 ppb, and not detectable to 2.1 ppb, respectively, depending on the product. For comparison, average lead concentrations in the protein supplements CR tested ranged from not detectable to 70.2 ppb, and about 40 percent of products tested had lead levels exceeding 14 ppb. (This methodology sheet breaks down our test results in further detail, with values for lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury reported in micrograms per serving and parts per billion for each product tested.)
November 3, 2025 at 9:24 PM
paris.nyc
What About European Standards? They Have to Be Better, Right?

wrong! the EU has a weirdly super high maximum lead level (3000 ppb) for food supplements, which every expert i spoke with was baffled by. it hasn't been updated in 17 years & is an order of magnitude higher than most other limits 🧵 6/?
One notable regulatory outlier is the European Union, which has set the maximum amount of lead permitted in food supplements at 3,000 ppb, a level that CR’s own food safety experts and every independent doctor and expert we have contacted say is far too high. Established in 2008, that standard is over seven times greater than the average lead limit set by the EU for all other foods. When we asked him about that standard, Pieter Cohen, MD, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who has studied the safety of supplements for nearly two decades, initially thought the figure was an error. It “makes no sense,” Cohen said in an email to CR. “That’s a crazy limit.” Rose Goldman, an associate professor of medicine and physician at Cambridge Health Alliance who studies lead exposure, said the EU limit was “more than an order of magnitude different” than other dietary lead standards. It’s unclear exactly why that is the case. Unlike many of the limits for heavy metals in food established by European authorities, the maximum level of lead permitted in food supplements hasn’t been updated in 17 years, despite sweeping changes in how scientists and regulators view lead exposure.
November 3, 2025 at 9:20 PM
paris.nyc
What About Other US Lead Standards?

well. they don't really exist! closest points of comparison are EPA action level for lead in tap water (10 ppb), or FDA's allowable level in bottled water (5 ppb) and proposed juice action levels (10-20 ppb)

many of the protein powders we tested exceeded these!
November 3, 2025 at 9:14 PM
paris.nyc
the average american adult is exposed to up to 5.3 μg of lead per day through their diet, per FDA scientists

that's relevant because it means that you could easily exceed the FDA's interim reference level for dietary lead by taking just one serving of some of the protein powders we tested
November 3, 2025 at 9:09 PM
paris.nyc
What About the FDA's "Interim Reference Level" For Dietary Lead (8.8 μg/day)?

it's obviously way higher than CR's level of concern for lead (0.5 μg). but crucially the IRL refers to total exposure from everything you eat and drink in a day, NOT just one source. that's important because... 3/? (🧵)
November 3, 2025 at 9:03 PM
paris.nyc
Why Is CR's Level of Concern for Lead So Low?

simply put: there is no safe level of lead exposure. (the FDA & WHO agree!) we base our level on CA's Prop 65 MADL for lead bc it's the most protective standard available. some people dunk on it for this very reason, but again: no safe level of exposure
Why Is CR's Level of Concern for Lead So Low? One way we displayed our test results is as a percentage of CR’s “level of concern” for lead, which is based on the California Prop 65 maximum allowable dose level (MADL) of 0.5 micrograms per day for lead. CR uses this benchmark because it has a wide safety margin built in and our food safety experts believe it is the most protective lead standard available. “There is no safe amount of lead, and we think your exposure to it in the food and water supply should be as low as possible,” says Sana Mujahid, PhD, who oversees food safety research and testing at CR. This line of thinking is echoed by public health authorities around the world: Both the Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization have repeatedly stated that there is no known safe level of exposure to lead. And, to be clear, we’re not making any legal statements here: We use Prop 65’s threshold of 0.5 micrograms per day, but a different risk assessment method, so no Prop 65 conclusions can be drawn from our results. For more specifics about CR’s risk assessment, see this methodology sheet (PDF).
November 3, 2025 at 8:51 PM
paris.nyc
ok this is somewhat compelling i’ll give you that
November 2, 2025 at 4:35 AM
paris.nyc
i know this in my bones
November 2, 2025 at 4:20 AM
paris.nyc
guys i literally learned how baseball works like 45 minutes ago how am i supposed to carry on after this
November 2, 2025 at 4:11 AM
paris.nyc
YES IT IS
November 1, 2025 at 11:27 PM
paris.nyc
i cannot emphasize enough how waylaid the EU’s biggest dietary lead survey was by the discovery of lead levels of 3,650,000 mcg/kg in wild boar meat
4.1.1 Dealing with potential outliers: Extremely high lead concentrations Several extremely high lead occurrence levels were identified: They were scrutinised to assess whether they could represent true outliers (i.e. measurements deviating significantly from the rest of the data and not belonging to the distribution of the rest of occurrence data) or they are rather indicating a large right skewness in the distribution and the presence of a long tail. Based on the evaluation, two exposure scenarios for the total population (i.e. ‘Basic scenario’, see Section 2.4.2) and specific subpopulation of high consumers of game mammals' meat (see Section 2.4.3.3) were calculated as follows: Scenario A: A set of extremely high lead levels measured in deer meat (up to 563,000 μg/kg), wild boar meat (up to 3,650,000 μg/kg) and mouflon meat (up to 409,000) was retained in the data set and used in the present assessment. These data, reported by different countries, appeared clustered in an almost normal distribution clearly separated from the main distribution of occurrence data. Therefore, rather than being interpreted as mistaken data, they were considered part of a distinct population of food items with lead levels most probably generated by use of lead containing ammunition during hunting, so that lead residuals left by bullets were present in the meat being analysed. For this reason, for the scenario A, it was considered appropriate to include those data in the assessment.
November 1, 2025 at 7:53 PM