The CPSC bows (a little bit)

Just picked this up from Consumerist. It looks like the Consumer Products Safety Commission has seen the light a little bit:

Large manufacturers and retailers say the cost of testing will not be a burden. But small businesses such as handmade-toy shops and thrift stores say the requirement would force them to spend tens of thousands of dollars to test products such as clothing, in which the threat of lead is almost nonexistent. Many thrift stores said they would be forced to stop selling children's clothing or close altogether.

The commission's two members (a third seat is vacant) voted tentatively to exempt:

• Items with lead parts that a child cannot access;
  
  
• Clothing, toys and other goods made of natural materials such as cotton and wood; and
  
  
• Electronics that are impossible to make without lead.

The commission also tentatively approved a rule that clarifies how it determines exclusions from the law.

Emphasis mine.

More Corporate Madness: How "helping" our kids could hurt in the long-run

I've been hearing rumblings on DaddyTypes and from my friend Phil who makes toys (among other things) about the law that the Consumer Products Safety Commission has drafted to go into effect on February 10. Considering my usual interest in small producers and quality products versus the marketing muscle of mega-corporations, I will take a mea culpa on not paying closer attention until this post. Apparently, the law affects toys and clothes, and it may be retroactive to extant items — whether or not they contain lead.

The law, aimed at keeping lead-filled merchandise away from children, mandates that all products sold for those age 12 and younger — including clothing — be tested for lead and phthalates, which are chemicals used to make plastics more pliable. Those that haven’t been tested will be considered hazardous, regardless of whether they actually contain lead.

Effectively, what the government has done is to ensure that small producers — anyone from a single maker like Phil to a small company with small revenues — must go through the same costly testing requirements as the corporations whose shoddy practices caused the problem in the first place. Word on the virtual street is that many producers simply won't be able to afford to make and sell their toys or clothes anymore. And that you may not be able to find and buy all those gorgeous handmade kids sweaters, blankets, wood toys, felted animals... you name it.

Do a couple searches or head on over to the Handmade Toy Alliance for more information.

UPDATE: Here's a good post from Consumerist on it with a couple good links beyond...

H/T to Neatorama for catching my attention.

consumer protection?

Oh, this is just brilliant. The White House is vetting candidates to run the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Wash Post leads the article with this:

The White House is considering a scientist who has frequently testified and written on behalf of the energy, pesticide and tobacco industries to chair the nation's chief product-safety regulator.

Sounds innocuous enough (sort of?) until you get down to this:

"She's not thought of as a consumer advocate per se but as someone hired by industry to represent their point of view," said Lynn Goldman, a former assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton, who has testified at hearings with Charnley.

We want more government by of and for business, dammit! Screw the consumers!

Oy.

toys, bibs, medicine

Okay, so the rest of the week has brought us word that bibs are contaminated with lead, various Mattel toys contaminated with lead or containing dangerously small magnets, and OTC cold medicines should not be used for children without a doctor's recommendation. So... happy day, calloo callay, frabjous day! One hundred years after The Jungle and the first efforts at consumer protection--not to mention U.S. government arguments that Borax was a safer food preservative than salt--corporations are still finding newer and better ways to poison people.

To wit: the FDA never tested the OTC cold medicines marketed for children's use, because the companies said the products were already too popular. Thanks, guys. I stopped using anything containing dextromethorphan on Banana after I realized it did nothing to help her symptoms, but radically affected her moods. Again: thanks, guys.

catfish

Lots of linking the last day or so... This one is from Consumerist.

The South--cap-S--might be backwards in lots of things, but at least they finally have the wherewithal to ban the importation of potentially tainted fish. Furthermore, imports like this drive locals out of business, and push our food sourcing beyond the limits of rationality.

No Surprise Here

From today's Washington Post:

American inspectors who arrived in China last week to investigate the two companies that exported tainted pet food ingredients found that the suspect facilities had been hastily closed down and cleaned up, federal officials said yesterday.

Why am I not surprised?

But what's most frightening as you read down into the article? This: "...as many as 198 U.S. fish farms and hatcheries may have received fish feed contaminated with the chemical melamine..."

Happy eating!

Chinese "Food"

I've been paying close attention to the growing controversy over Chinese food exports and production, and this piece on Consumerist was more than a little revolting and frightening. It also reminded me of a few things.

When I traveled to China for a couple of months in 1996, food was one of the more interesting adventures. Not just in terms of knowing what or how to order, but knowing what in fact you were being served. This wasn't as much a problem with the private cook my mother shared with a few other professors in Nanjing or with the the bigger, more reputable restaurants in large cities. Rather, the problem came up more often at "tourist" restaurants where you were herded into a large space and fed a "traditional" chinese meal of egg roll, sweet and sour pork, green vegetable (usually either bok choy or choy sum), and duck.

A few times in such restaurants, particularly when we were traveling down the Yangtze, I made the mistake of asking what we were being served because the meat was clearly nothing I had tasted before. In every case, however, the answer was the same: Pork. Apparently, pork is the universal choice for feeding westerners who, as a rule, do not speak the language. Even if it's not pork. There were no pigs to be seen anywhere in these towns, and these are not places that bring food in.

Anyway, they were treating our tourist groups like rubes the same way their agribusiness has been treating us like rubes by intentionally filling food ingredients with dangerous additives. What is truly frightening is that companies in China produce an increasing amount of our food ingredients, including shrimp, crawfish, rice, and much more. If neither we nor they are really policing the safety of production, how far will this reach?

For lots of reasons, I see a correlation with the number of incidences of toys made in China coming up with warnings for lead poisoning hazards; a quick search of the CPSC site for "china lead" turns up 1,451 recalls.

Is it possible that our drive for ever-cheaper and more abundant is catching up with us—with dangerous results?

More from the annals of consumer safety sold to the highest bidder

So what is it, I mean, what is it really with the Bush&Co selling off every piece of the government to business interests. The examples are too numerous to list, but the latest one is every bit as galling. Daddytypes also links through to The Consumerist on this one. None of this should be surprising, of course, given the idiots running things, but this one galls particularly. They are putting a man in charge of consumer safety who has developed a record of complete disdain and disregard for consumers, parents, children, society. These people are pathetic.