Cat products from China. Lead danger?

Lead can be found in any product that is colored or dyed. The US banned lead in paints long ago, but those same standards do not apply to things manufactured in other countries. Jewelry, painted toys, cosmetics, and even the reusable bags from the grocery store all contain lead. This is especially harmful to children who's brains are developing, and put their hands in their mouths. No one knows the danger that lead poses to cats. Without getting the products tested you cannot tell. If the muzzle does contain lead, washing it will not remove it, as it's permanently in the dye. The sisal if the natural color is probably safe. But putting a cat bed on the top of the post isn't a guarantee either as you have no idea where the fabric the bed is made of came from :( Fabrics though are probably reasonably safe as long as the cats don't suck on them.

Sad that we have to worry about such things, isn't it :(

The sisal is not dyed. I have white fabric I can use to make a cat bed. She doesn't suck on the fabric, but she does sniff at it, and it's just fluffy enough that she could decide that it needs grooming. (CATS!)

I don't know how much danger lead poses to cats, either, but this is the smartest cat I've ever met (she actually understands that when I point at something I'm not presenting her with a finger to inspect), and I value her intelligence almost as much as I value my own. And lead is a known brain killer.

I have a coffee cup given to me by a doctor's office as a "welcome to the practice" gift. Made in China. I'm not using it.

Okay, so I can fix the scratching post to make it safe for her, but that leaves the cat muzzle, which I really need in order to make it easier to clip her claws. She certainly won't be licking that, but she will be smelling it. I guess my best bet there would be to use some white fabric and some pellon to make a new one, using the one I bought as a pattern. I already know that the fabric can be dyed (old cotton sheet), so I can get some legal-in-the-U.S. dye to make it dark enough. And I already have a nice tarp that I bought at the army surplus store for a tie-dye project that I have in mind, so that's easy enough.

Yes; it's horrible that we have to think about these things. I know people who are pro-choice specifically because they think it reduces crime rates by reducing the number of black children. I'm pro-choice for other reasons, but this reason is based entirely on a statistical anomaly. Roe v. Wade was decided at about the same time as lead was removed from gasoline. Gas fumes tend to be concentrated in the inner city. And, world-wide, crime rates go down ~25 years after lead is removed from gasoline.

As for grocery bags, I heard a thing on NPR the other day about, um, whatever it is that they use to make plastic hard, that's dangerous. Did you know that your grocery receipt is coated with that stuff? And it's easily absorbed through the skin. What the heck are the people who make these things thinking?