A New Report Suggests We All May Be Brushing Our Teeth With Lead and Other Toxic Metals

If you were shocked by the hundreds of thousands of microplastics we swallow erstwhile we chew gum, you’re successful for different spook. New probe is revealing that dozens of communal toothpaste brands are contaminated with toxic metals.

Lead Safe Mama (LSM), an enactment dedicated to preventing puerility pb poisoning done autarkic investigating of user goods, has revealed that fashionable toothpaste and bony pulverization products incorporate levels of lead, mercury, arsenic, and/or cadmium—all of which are toxic. Though not each laboratory reports person been published yet, 90% of the 51 analyzed toothpastes tested affirmative for lead, including well-known brands similar Sensodyne Extra Whitening Toothpaste, Tom’s of Maine Kid’s Natural Toothpaste, and Crest Regular Toothpaste. 65% of the brands incorporate arsenic, 47% incorporate mercury, and 35% incorporate cadmium.

“It’s unconscionable – particularly successful 2025,” Tamara Rubin, Lead Safe Mama’s founder, told the Guardian. “What’s truly absorbing to maine is that nary 1 thought this was a concern.”

As of now, the laboratory tests did not observe lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium successful lone 5 of the analyzed toothpastes: Dr. Brown’s Baby Toothpaste, Kids’ Spry Tooth Gel with Xylitol, Pegciz Toothpaste (Foam), Orajel Training Toothpaste, and Miessence Toothpaste. These brands show “that it genuinely is imaginable to manufacture safer toothpaste choices!” Rubin wrote successful the LSM blog post sharing the toxicant profiles, which were updated Thursday to bespeak the astir caller laboratory results.

Surprisingly, nary of the products transcend the US Food and Drug Administration’s recommended limits for pb contamination successful cosmetics, which are 10,000 parts per billion. Washington State, however, precocious passed a law limiting pb contamination successful cosmetic products, specifically including toothpastes, to 1,000 ppb, and respective brands surpassed this limit. According to the World Health Organization, determination is nary known level of pb vulnerability that does not negatively interaction health. In different words, immoderate and each vulnerability to pb is harmful.

“The instauration of the enactment of LSM is the knowing (and statement with the technological and aesculapian consensus) that determination is nary harmless level of Lead vulnerability for humans,” Rubin wrote, “and that we (as consumers) should request that companies beryllium held accountable for manufacturing and selling lead-contaminated products, particularly products marketed and sold for usage by children.”

According to their website, LSM has been independently investigating user goods—such arsenic toys, household items, and jewelry—via crowd-sourced backing for sixteen years. In 2024 they started sending hundreds of community-nominated products—including food, supplements, cosmetics, and idiosyncratic attraction items—to third-party labs to trial for lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic. The laboratory reports are each published online, freely accessible to the public.

While the results of the laboratory investigation are surely worrying, they besides item an inspiring illustration of acrophobic citizens taking their wellness into their ain hands and empowering others to support themselves and their children safe.