At our first ever Get the Lead Out event in St. Louis, we had quite the learning experience. Consumers on Friday and Saturday brought in more than 300 toys to be screened for lead content. About 30 of them (10 percent) tested positive.

Here is a shot of one of the screeners using his X-ray gun on a coloring kit. (Before you get any ideas of buying one of these for home, I should tell you they cost $40K.) The toy with the highest lead content was actually an old metal tractor that's a hand-me down from my wife's family. This thing may be 60 years old or more. It had 85,000 parts per million of lead. Some perspective: no amount of lead is safe for children. The federal government allows lead content up to 600 parts per million in consumer products. So this tractor had 140 times the legal limit. Another hand-me down tractor had about 5,000 ppm. That one was probably 35 years old.

Interestingly, people brought in some coffee mugs that were off the charts with lead. The biggest hazard is to kids under six years old, but still it was startling to find lead in things designed for oral contact like a mug. Check out AG Nixon's Recall Clearinghouse to find the latest items recalled in several different categories.