Frankenstein cups recalled in US for high lead levels

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Just weeks before children celebrate Halloween on October 31, 63,000 plastic Frankenstein cups were recalled Thursday in the United States because they contain scarily high levels of lead.

The recall, announced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Dollar General Merchandising of Tennessee, came after Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown warned that several made-in-China Halloween items on sale in the United States, including the mugs, contained dangerously high levels of lead.

Brown had commissioned the head of a university chemistry department to conduct lead tests on 22 Halloween items ahead of the holiday so popular with children.

The tests showed that the Frankenstein cup contained 39,000 parts per million (ppm) of lead, or 65...