Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions
DoctorX
301
Jul 4, 2014
Personally I'd advise caution for something made of brass - which contains lead - that you're putting in your mouth.
Better get clarification on the type of brass used and whether it is lead-free.
DoctorXThe whistles are made with machinable brass, which does contain small amounts of lead. In order to combat any danger, the mouthpieces have a clear coating to protect the user from any lead ingestion. Short of swallowing the whole whistle, you will be completely fine during normal use.
Silverstrike
154
Jul 5, 2014
Cybernetic-Research-LabsI wouldn't go as far as to swallow it, but my dog could!
Laike
18
Jul 5, 2014
Cybernetic-Research-LabsHow durable is this coating? Will it survive long term contact on a key chain where it will be rubbing up against keys?
dorkvader
199
Jul 5, 2014
Cybernetic-Research-LabsThe maximum allowable daily lead intake in usually about 300 micrograms for a small child.
Machineable brass contains roughly 2% lead.
This whistle masses 40 grams, so it contains about 80 mg of lead.
This means you would have to powder the whistle and eat the brass powder to get lead poisoning from it. Just using your mouth on it shouldn't take off any more than a few tenths of a percent of the metal, which is far below an allowable daily dose. Drinking from leaded stemware will get much more lead in your system than this, coating or not.
So even without the coating, I wouldn't worry. If you swallow the whistle, the biggest danger is the physical size / shape than the lead content. Even if you powdered it, I'd be more worried about the Brass Poisoning than lead (though information is scarce, I found an article from 1900 covering brass poisoning. Note that they mention the copper content and the distinctive green on the teeth http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2506540/)
TL;DR? Don't worry about it.