Efforts to Crack Down on Lead Paint Thwarted by China, Bush Administration

Efforts to Crack Down on Lead Paint Thwarted by China, Bush Administration


WASHINGTON - The Bush administration and China have both undermined efforts to tighten rules designed to ensure that lead paint isn’t used in toys, bibs, jewelry and other children’s products.

Both have fought efforts to better police imported toys from China.

Now both are under increased scrutiny following last week’s massive toy recall by Mattel Inc., the world’s largest toymaker. The recalls of Chinese-made toys follow several other lead-paint-related scares since June that have affected products featuring Sesame Street characters, Thomas the Train and Dora the Explorer. 0821 05

Lead paint is toxic when ingested by children and can cause brain damage or death. It’s been mostly banned in the United States since the late 1970s, but is permitted in the coating of toys, providing it amounts to less than six parts per million.

The Bush administration has hindered regulation on two fronts, consumer advocates say. It stalled efforts to press for greater inspections of imported children’s products, and it altered the focus of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), moving it from aggressive protection of consumers to a more manufacturer-friendly approach.

“The overall philosophy is regulations are bad and they are too large a cost for industry, and the market will take care of it,” said Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy at OMBWatch, a government watchdog group formed in 1983. “That’s been the philosophy of the Bush administration.”

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/21/3313/

no scratch that it does enrage me.

Just plain sad.

Will people stop buying the toys? Or anything made in China, given what's being said in the media? That'd become pretty costly for somebody too. And not the consumers.

:shrug:

they import great wooden toys. I'm pushing them because they said they have always tested every shipment, even before this happened.

don't forget to stock upon ALL of their chinese made contaminated toys.