"You've got to be kidding me!" was the first thing we thought after hearing on Tuesday that Nancy Nord, the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), doesn't support legislation to greatly increase resources for her agency to stop toxic products from reaching children. Right now there is only one inspector charged with testing toys.
We weren't the only people shaking our heads in disbelief. Representative Nancy Pelosi -- Speaker of the House, mother, and grandmother -- had the exact same reaction. Matter of fact, Speaker Pelosi was so upset that she contacted MomsRising yesterday to thank us for taking action, offer us the following blog post and urge our continued efforts to keep toxic products off store shelves.
Speaker Pelosi:
As mothers, there is no greater concern than the safety of our children. Yet with the recent reports of lead in toys for kids, moms and dads now have a new worry. If the recalls of toy jewelry, trains, and Halloween candy pails weren't upsetting enough, yesterday we learned that Halloween "Ugly Teeth" were recalled -- on Halloween day itself! Lead in toys is unacceptable; lead in toys children are supposed to put in their mouth is criminal.This summer, 20 million imported toys that were manufactured overseas were recalled -- some of which contained nearly 200 times the legal limit for lead. The most heartbreaking for me was the recall of some Thomas the Tank Engine toys, a favorite among my five grandsons.
We must make sure that government lives up to its responsibility to protect our children. Parents should not have to buy a lead testing kit before letting their children play. We have a consumer protection agency to do that. Yet at the Consumer Safety Protection Commission, there is only one inspector charged with testing toys to make sure they are safe for our children. And recently, when the chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission was asked by Congress if she would request an increase of resources and funding for the commission, she refused to support this much needed action. I know we can do better.
Congress is determined to help parents who are frustrated. That is why we are working to pass legislation that will ban lead from children's toys, require testing of children's products by independent, third-party laboratories, and provide the Consumer Product Safety Commission with significantly greater resources to protect our families. For too long, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has failed to protect kids from hazardous levels of lead in their toys.
The evidence of how lead in toys harms children is overwhelming. Many years of research have shown that exposure to this neuro-toxin can have serious long-term effects, particularly on children. While the recent recalls have brought the issue to popular attention, the problem is, unfortunately, not a new one. In 2004, 2005, and 2006, millions of pieces of toy jewelry were recalled due to unsafe levels of lead.
With this legislation, we will ensure that there are no more stories like that of Jarnell Brown, a four-year-old who died in 2006 after swallowing a charm on a bracelet that contained over 99 percent lead. But we need your help. Get in touch with your Representative and Senator, and urge them to support legislation to protect our children.
I want to thank the MomsRising community for working to eliminate toxic toys. By passing this legislation and continuing our vigorous oversight, we will work to make certain not one more child is harmed by the toys we give them -- our children deserve nothing less, and certainly much more.
Build the Momentum to Stop Toxic Products! Stand with Speaker Pelosi: "We demand safe, lead-free toys for children. Congress must strengthen the agencies responsible for protecting kids from toxic products and remove the bureaucrats who are standing in the way."
You can’t wait for the government to fix everything.
Jesus wept!
capitalism. As more babies get sick, die,
or see their IQ's go down the market will
self-correct and move it's unseen hand to
a cheaper, better source. All you complaining,
socialistic mommies will just have to make better shopping decisions in this free market
economy.
I hear that Jeffery Skilling promises to help you all out once his appeal through and is
given a job as Commerce Secetary in the Bush administration.
In the Republican world view, government is something to be corrupted to their purposes.
The traditional, main stream view that government exists to implement the will of the people, and should serve the people, runs counter to the neo-con goal of politicising every possible facet of the government and the economy. Thus, we are increasingly seeing decisions based on neo-con Republican dogma, rather than common sense.
The Democrats may not always be as charismatic as we would like, but compared to the new Republican alternative, they are truly much, much better.
The Last Congress and this Congress have betrayed their oath to protect the Constitution by allowing Bush to break the law by overstepping his Constitutional authority.
Let us see if Reid and Pelosi do something..At this point they should resign and let some true American patriots take over.
What's scary is that this is probably happening to a lot of other agencies performing important regulatory functions and it's getting ignored by the media. Nancy Nord was appointed in 2005. The CPSC has had many problems in the last 2 years. Why are we just hearing about the agency's problems now?
You and one of our other California Senators, Dianne Feinstein, have now become ennablers of the Republicans. If you disagree, show me (all I got from Feinstein was an apologia for voting for the racist Judge Southwick -- not enough proof that he was and is a KKK shill).
Do Democrats have to roll over and play dead to prove their patriotism? Show some f*cking guts. Push bills calling for an end to financing the War on Iraq until George the Moron gets it. (He may never get it, but, believe me, the American people will.) They already know that George W. Bush is a prime-time, cowardly asshole. Just keep putting that in the Republicans' faces.
Iraq is a preemptive, Republican War, no two ways about it. The Democrats only fault is going along with these assholes because they don't want to be seen as "soft on terrorism."
Guess what, Sadddam and Iraq had absofuckinglutely nothing to do with 9/11. This war has been fought on the basis of lies and it's about time Bush and his neocon minions are called on it.
Then I read that Bush says denying that the country is at war is dangerous. He criticized the Congress of for not passing the emergency war funding bill.
I rushed to HuffPo so I could right a few scorching words, and I came across the article.
Did head of product safety REALLY suggest 1 person testing toys is enough? That's ridiculous even before you consider that they simultaneously have us in some bumper sticker war on terror.
This administration has to filled with the most ideologically driven, least intelligent EVER!! And I'm including the guy who died of pneumonia after giving his inaugral speech in freezing rain.
And we don't know everything!!