While I’m in Public Service Announcement mode—and concerned with how someone searching for a viral headline in their reporting can distort science try this one on. I’ve seen many similar misuses of science in search of viral headlines over the past 20 years. It is disheartening.
Consumer Reports just released an “investigation” into lead in protein powder. They concluded that there is an unsafe amount—based upon their own internal standard safe levels.
I am not shocked. A little story. I was a member of a Technical Committee of the engineering society ASHRAE. At one meeting, an “investigator” from Consumer Reports attended to talk about research into a product under our jurisdiction. I remember the conversation and the looks that passed around the table among the engineers in attendance. The CR guy said, “Here is the conclusion I’ve made about the product. The testing will begin next week.”
I’ve never read a word from that organization since.
I’m not surprised that they butchered a so-called investigation into protein powder. I have no idea what the chip is on their shoulder, but the organization should just fold up in my opinion.
Here are a couple of science-backed rebuttals to the story. And a word of warning about jumping into belief based upon hyped headlines.
These quotes are a reply to hype about lead in protein powder in Arnold’s Pump Club Newsletter. The link takes you to a web site where you can check another response that goes deeper into the science.
But when you ask what’s actually being compared—to what, at what dose, and in whom—you begin to see the full picture. The difference between fear and understanding often comes down to asking one more question.
Take the recent Consumer Reports article we covered yesterday about “dangerous” levels of lead in protein powders. The headline spread everywhere: Protein Powder Contains Toxic Lead. Social media lit up. Every major news outlet covered it and took the information at face value. People lost their minds, got worried about lead poisoning, and threw away their supplements.
That’s not being dramatic. People were genuinely worried.
But, as we discussed yesterday, here’s what most stories left out:
Consumer Reports based its claim on a misleading safety threshold of just 0.5 micrograms of lead per day. That number is not a federal standard; it’s an ultra-conservative internal benchmark with no clinical evidence that it represents harm.
The FDA’s actual guidance for lead in foods is actually many multiples higher.
Common foods like spinach, strawberries, apples, carrots, and chocolate naturally contain trace amounts of lead from soil, sometimes more than the protein powders being criticized.
When you put those numbers in context, the danger looks a lot different. The protein powders weren’t unsafe; the problem was a misleading definition of “safe.”
And that’s what made it so frustrating. There are many issues you could point out in the supplement industry. This just wasn’t one, and it created unnecessary panic because of a lack of context.
There’s another response on this blog.
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