The ConsumerLabs.com spokesperson made three major claims.  First he said that his company plays a vital role in protecting consumer safety because the entire supplement industry is unregulated.  Second, he said that California law, Proposition 65,  limits the amount of lead in supplements to .5 mcg per daily dose.  Third, he said that our Ionic Fizz Super DK  Calcium Plus contains .97 mcg of lead per serving.

All of these points need to be addressed.  But, of them all, the most important to us is the last.  Our goal is, and has always been to provide the world’s cleanest, safest, most effective products.  Naturally, that includes having the lowest lead levels possible.

It has been somewhat surprising to us that more than a few of our customers have asked us why there is any lead in supplements.  A few have even asked why we would add it.  So lets start there.

Lead is ubiquitous in nature.  It is found in every soil sample in the world.  Plants absorb it, along with calcium, magnesium and other helpful minerals, from the soil through their root structures.  Plants then pass it on through the food chain to the animals which eat them, and whatever eats those animals gets it from them. Fruits contain lead. Vegetables contain lead.  Meats, eggs and fish contain lead.  Even the red wine people use to protect their heart health contains lead (in fact, its levels are relatively high).

If it were possible to avoid lead altogether, Proposition 65 would simply ban it.  The fact that it instead imposes limits shows that California recognizes that the worlds most eminent scientists agree that some lead is unavoidable.  The question, then is how little we can have?

From roughly 2008 to 2010,  the average lead levels in Ionic Fizz Super DK were more or less the levels reported by ConsumerLab.com.  According to the consent judgements issued by the State of California this level was compliant with Proposition 65.  If it were not we would not have released the product.  However, since we were still not happy with the level, we continued to exhaust every possible avenue to find cleaner mineral sources.

In late 2010, we found a company in the Dead Sea area of Israel that claimed to have extremely clean sources of calcium lactate and magnesium carbonate. We needed these specific forms of calcium and magnesium because they are the easiest to dissolve in water. When we tested these minerals for lead, we thought something was wrong with our equipment. We had never seen such low lead levels, because of this, we recalibrated our lead detection systems and tested again.   After several in-house tests, we sent the minerals to outside labs.  They confirmed our results.  By incorporating these newly sourced minerals into our Ionic Fizz products, we reduced the lead levels of the products by over 60%, to well under .5 mcg per daily serving.  We informed ConsumerLab.com of this development.  They refused to test any further batches of our products.

Believing we could do even better,  we then set about locating new sources for every other ingredient in the Ionic Fizz products.  In 2012, we located a source of bamboo, from which the products’ silica is derived, that was, like the minerals, far cleaner than the scores of others we had sampled. By replacing the old bamboo with the new, we were again able to  slash the levels of lead.

Since the batch tested by ConsumerLab.com, we have made over 80 new lots. Because of the minerals from the Dead Sea, they have all been beneath the .5 mcg threshold which ConsumerLab.com calls its ‘standard of quality’.  Since we found the new bamboo, Magnesium Plus has tested between .1 mcg and .22 mcg. Calcium Plus and Super DK Calcium Plus have been between .21 and .34 mcg.  These are absolutely the cleanest, safest mineral products in the industry, and contain far less than even the strictest interpretation of Proposition 65 permits

A quick look at the reality of Proposition 65 as it is enforced today explains why.

ABOUT PROPOSITION 65
Proposition 65 is a California law that limits the amounts of lead in various consumer products.  The actual language of the law states that supplements may not have more than .5 mcg of lead per intended daily dose.  However, consent judgments in California courts have consistently ruled that supplements may, in some cases, contain more.
All minerals originate in the magma of the earth’s core.  They reach the surface of the earth when they are churned out as lava or rocks from volcanoes. Among these minerals are vital nutrients like calcium and magnesium. Unfortunately, a small amount of lead comes with them.

Because of this, California’s courts have held in two landmark cases (Warner Lambert and Century 21) that supplements may contain not only the .5 mcg permitted by the language of Proposition 65, but also additional amounts for each milligram they contain of calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and zinc.

To make a long story at least a bit shorter, a product that contains 1500 mg of calcium is permitted to contain .5 mcg plus another 1.2 mcg allowance for the calcium (total of 1.7 mcg). If the product also contains 500 milligrams of magnesium oxide, it would be permitted another .166 micrograms, for a total lead content of 1.866 mcg per day. As you can see, this is nearly three times more than the actual language of Proposition 65 permitted.

California’s courts have made these allowances because the prevailing evidence at the time the cases were heard was that it is nearly impossible to make cleaner products. While making these exceptions, however, the courts reserved the right to lower the additional allowances at any time that new evidence showed cleaner products could be made.
Based on their formulas, our Ionic Fizz Magnesium Plus is actually permitted to contain .849 mcg of lead per serving. Our Calcium Plus and Super DK Calcium Plus formulas are permitted 1.0949 mcg.

We mention this because we know that consumers are led by companies like ConsumerLab.com to believe that supplements with no Proposition 65 warnings contain less than .5 mcg. In truth, they could contain much more.  Although our products are permitted the .849 and 1.0949 mcg levels, every batch we have produced since 2011 has been beneath the .5 mcg threshold, and our company policy is to sell nothing that contains more than .42 mcg.

YOUR SAFETY COMES FIRST
At Pure Essence, nothing comes before your safety. After all, we don’t just make supplements. We don’t just sell supplements. We use them. So do our children. And our grandchildren. Obviously, we care about their health. So, we refuse to sell anything that doesn’t meet the standards we set for them.

To assure you that you are using the world’s cleanest, safest supplements, we post the lead levels of every batch of every product we make on this website. Just click on the Quality Assurance tab on our home page, and then on the Proposition 65 Compliance button on the menu that follows. Once there, select the name of the product in which you’re interested. A list of every batch made since early 2010 will appear.

We post this information because we are proud of it. Since you now know that products you once thought were limited to .5 mcg of lead per daily serving can, in fact, contain much more, we suggest you require this information of every manufacturer whose products you wish to use.

HOW MUCH LEAD CAN I HAVE PER DAY?
The federal government says that children up to age six can safely consume up to 6 mcg of lead per day. The limit for older children is 15 mcg. For pregnant or lactating women, the limit is 25 mcg, and for adult men and women, 75 mcg.

The removal of lead from gasoline and paint has dramatically reduced lead exposure in the United States. However, it is still present in foods, beverages, etc. While the amount in supplements is probably not significant, it is still wise to choose supplements with the lowest lead levels.

It would take 750 daily doses of our Magnesium Plus to reach adult lead intake limits, and over 300 daily doses of Calcium Plus or Super DK Calcium Plus.  In short, there is no health risk in using these products. They are the cleanest mineral supplements you will find anywhere.

Please click here to view specific lead level results for each of our products.

At Pure Essence Labs our commitment to nature drives everything we do: from how we source our ingredients to how we formulate; from how we package our products to which organizations we support.  We are constantly working to reduce our environmental impact.  We believe that no act is too small and that every little bit helps.

• All of our printed marketing materials are made from recycled paper, whenever possible.
• We use soy based inks whenever possible.
• Our boxes are printed using 100% certified renewable wind energy and carry the FSC logo for being made from well-managed forests and other controlled sources.
• Many of our ingredients come from sustainable sources,  The Camu Camu berries in our Whole C is one of them. The berries are harvested in the Amazon Rain Forest, providing the indigenous peoples with a renewable resource and source of income, thus eliminating the motivation for deforestation.

What are you doing to make it Earth Day everyday?

You can find us on Twitter at “PureEssenceLabs”