DALLASTOWN, Pa. -- Vinyl lunchboxes have characters on the outside like Superman, the X-Men and Hello Kitty, but on the inside, some have lead.

"That's scary. I have four children. That's scary because you can't even have lead paint and stuff like that," said Janice Gentry of Dallastown, Pa.

Lead has been used as a stabilizer in polyvinyl chloride, or PVC liners. But, it's debatable whether the amount of lead in lunchboxes can be harmful to children.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission tests a variety of products. And recently it looked at vinyl lunchboxes.

CPSC spokeswoman Patty Davis said it tested 60 vinyl lunchboxes and found extremely low levels of excessive lead.

A child would have to rub the lunchbox about 600 times a day and put his hand in his mouth for 15 to 30 days straight to get high levels of lead into his system, Davis said.

The CPSC tested how a child would get excessive lead in their bloodstream from the lunchbox, but not how the lead would affect food. That's the jurisdiction of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA recently asked manufacturers and retailers to stop selling lunchboxes with lead in the liners because of the potential for lead to leach into the food.

Wal-Mart has only vinyl lunchboxes on the shelf with tags that indicate they are lead safe.

But, there are no standards for the tags. News 8 in Lancaster, Pa. put some lunchboxes to a non-scientific test. They purchased a variety of vinyl lunchboxes at four different retailers. They used a household lead check recommended by the Center for Environmental Health.

All but one of the lunch boxes came up clean. One of the lunch boxes, purchased at a Dollar Tree Store, was tested, a light pink tinge appeared, indicating the presence of lead.

The CPSC doesn't recommend the home lead tests.

"These lead test kits are inaccurate. (You can get) false positives and false negatives," Davis said.

The CPSC also said parents should put the lunchbox issue in perspective and be more concerned about lead in paint or children's jewelry.