NYC inspectors have been buying spices, cosmetics, supplements, cookware, religious products, candies, toys, and anything else they find suspicious off bodega and import-store shelves since 2008, then lab-testing them. 8,494 measurements across 12 categories from 121 countries.
new york city's department of health has been doing something nobody else does at this scale. since 2008, inspectors have been walking into bodegas, import groceries, religious goods stores, and herbal shops in immigrant neighborhoods, buying anything that looks suspicious off the shelf, and sending it to the city's lab.
the result is the non-pharmaceutical surveillance database, and it is the single richest source in this whole project. 8,494 measurements across 12 categories: spices, cosmetics, supplements, cookware, religious products, candies, toys, traditional remedies, and more. 4,518 unique products tested. 121 countries of origin.
they test for lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and chromium. the highest single readings in the entire database come from this dataset, kohl at 980,000,000 ppb (98% lead by mass), ayurvedic pellets at 130,000,000 ppb, sindoor near 100% pure lead chromate.
NYC NPSD is the closest thing the US has to proactive consumer-product testing for heavy metals. every other US source is either a one-time research report or a reactive recall list. NYC just keeps shopping and testing, year after year.
NYC NPSD contributed measurements to 12 of the 13 categories in the lead database. each card links to the full sortable table for that category, where you can filter by source = "NYC NPSD" to see only these rows.
metals tested: lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, chromium, total solids.
units: normalized to ppb (parts per billion by mass), identical to µg/kg. 1,000 ppb = 1 ppm = 1 mg/kg = 0.0001%. recall records (where the original notice did not publish a concentration) are flagged in the table as "recall record" rather than a number.
license: NYC open data (CC0). when you reuse rows from this source, attribute the original source. the unified database itself is published under CC-BY-SA 4.0.
official source: https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Health/Metal-Content-of-Consumer-Products-Tested-by-the-N/da9u-wz3r
the lead database hub stitches together NYC NPSD with eight other open-license sources for a unified, searchable view of consumer-product heavy-metal data. nine sources, thirteen categories, 67,497 measurements, all normalized to the same units.
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bookmark this page. the database and the leaducational pages update almost every day. the bottle sheet and the dish list grow as the lab finishes new runs.
the information is free. the kit is for parents who, after reading the framework, decide they want to walk around the nursery with a drop bottle tonight. one drop of fluoro-spec on the painted side of a plate. if it's lead, it glows green in seconds. no lab.
see the drip kit, $50 →