CPSIA – Good News and Bad News (Update No. 1)

Tokyo tap water is no longer suitable for babies 12 months or younger. The impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster spreads. Black smoke is seen coming out of Unit 3 at the nuclear plant and workers are evacuated again. Won’t be allowed back for 24 hours. Not to worry you . . . but they have no idea why it’s smoking. Japanese Broccoli is now found to give you a healthy glow (an extra “benefit”) and the import of many Japanese foods from the region have been banned by the U.S. FDA and by Hong Kong, soon to be followed by South Korea. One Austrian scientist says this disaster will be similar to Chernobyl, and their crud is blowing over here.

Back on the home front, we are not worried about radioactivity from Japan. Harmless! Rather than focusing on the impact of nuclear material showering down on us from the heavens, into our food, our water, our produce, onto our skin and breathed into our lungs every moment of the day now, those valiant defenders of children, the CPSC, will be holding a highly-publicized hearing on pool drains – because a newspaper currently in bankruptcy hired an uncertified lab to perform tests on drain covers that have not apparently been involved in injuries. This is a TOP priority of our nurturing government. Who says we don’t need more government? Come on, baby, give me MORE!

Of course, I make light – after all, I am a blogger, I must do so. The real scourge for children, as anyone can tell you, is not airborne radioactive material, but lead – which is why our CPSC has worked so tirelessly for three years to identify dangerous items like ballpoint pens, rhinestones, brass bushings on toy car wheels, ATV engine blocks, bicycle frames and bicycle vinyl seats, branding them as unsuitable for sale (or exposure) to children under 13 years of age.

Of course, there’s plenty of legal mumbo-jumbo to consider, provisos and the like. Having carefully sorted out the hazard, our CPSC has determined that pens are only dangerous if they are intended for use by children. [Ballpoint pens have a tiny brass ball at the ink end, and brass contains 2-4% lead by weight. I bet you're scared now!] The ACTUAL USE of pens is not the health concern – what matters instead is what the manufacturer intended – you know, their state of mind at the time of sale. Hasn’t your mother ever told you that it’s what’s in your heart that REALLY matters? The CPSC took this on board. After much cogitating, they determined that it’s not a problem if 100% of children use ballpoint pens – no, it’s only a problem if kids use a ballpoint pen INTENDED for use by children. THAT’S unacceptably dangerous and big penalties and recalls can result if you step over the line. They must have figured out that the state of mind of the manufacturer changes the physical character of the pen – pens literally take on the power to harm when a manufacturer thinks about selling them to kids!

It’s a good thing we employ so many scientists at the CPSC. I hate to think about the crazy rules they’d come up with if they didn’t have such a solid grounding in real science. Of course, they also employ many lawyers . . . . Could it be the lawyers???

Of course, I jest. The CPSC is certainly right – how could such an august organization err? And experts have told them they’re right – that’s a double-check right there. At the February 16th hearing on the 100 ppm lead standard, Don Mays from Consumers Union, a REAL expert, kicked off his testimony by reminding the Commission that there is NO safe level for lead. [I did not provide you with a clip of those magical words, but you can dig them up yourself if you don't believe me.] Mr. Mays was joined on the consumer group panel by another RENOWNED expert, Dr. Dana Best of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Mr. Mays and Dr. Best had a revealing dialogue with Commissioner Anne Northup on the horrors of brass instruments. You will see that the CPSC has no choice, the risks to children are so severe. Here’s a transcript (you can see the video here):

AN: “Do you think that children that are in the 3rd and 4th grade should be prohibited from playing brass instruments considering the lead content of that brass?”

DM: “I think children should not be exposed to lead unnecessarily. And children in the 3rd and 4th grade, I have a daughter in the 4th grade and I certainly wouldn’t want her to be exposed to lead if that was coming from an instrument.”

AN: “So you would not let her play, like, the horn.”

DM: “I would be very concerned about that, that’s for sure. She does not play the horn, she plays the violin. Ha Ha Ha.”

DB: “The mouthpieces on most of those instruments are not brass.”

AN: “Yes, exactly. But they’re holding them. They sling them around and hold them. . . . They could practice at night and play it every day during class. That would mean an every day exposure. I just wondered if that would alarm you.”

DB: “Uh, it would alarm me that children were exposed unnecessarily to lead. And that’s again the responsibility of the CPSC to determine, to look at the studies on individual cases. I’m here to talk about the harms of lead to children and how they need to be protected.”

Frankly, I can’t remember if Ms. Northup started banging her head against a wall at that point or not . . . .

With this kind of counsel, you can rest assured that the CPSC has its priorities straight. Don Mays and Dana Best are on the case! Just PLEASE don’t mention bicycle licking . . . .

Read more here:
CPSIA – Good News and Bad News (Update No. 1)

CPSIA – Obama Doesn’t Get It . . . .

In response to the release of yet more terrible jobless claims numbers this AM, President Obama renewed his call to lower taxes on small business and to ease the small business credit crunch. The legislation, which promises to lower certain taxes on small business and to increase federal funding of loans to small businesses through various means, is “stuck” in Congress. Mr. Obama blamed the Republicans for “blocking” the bill: “‘There will be plenty of time between now and November to play politics,’ Obama said. ‘Let’s put aside the partisanship for a while and work together.’”

I think this is rich, personally. We run a small business and I know what it feels like to be a small business in the Obama-cized children’s product market. We are facing skyrocketing costs nicely matched with soft revenues and mounting taxes (funded by the company, too). Cost increases include $300K in new medical plan expenses to accommodate the terms of the Obamacare initiative, plus astronomical all-in costs for increased safety testing under the new CPSIA rules and related manias. The increased testing has yet to reveal any useful information of identify any health threat that constitutes a human safety risk – so all that money is wasted.

These costs have a common link – they are both a result of increasing regulation. I know, I know, Mr. Obama has lectured us that we really need all these new regulations. Well, I don’t agree, but in any event, we see these regulations as major impediments in our business. These high costs affect our cash flow and our business outlook – to the bad. Do the Democrats think we maintain our sunny disposition when we face a shaky market lacking confidence (soft revenues), higher costs (a lot higher) and mounting cash needs from higher taxes and other federal regulatory expenses? This is rather a recipe for managers who want to hide until the storm passes. Who will spend money on new investment now? While we are not cutting our product development efforts, we haven’t bought new equipment, fixtures or additional office/warehouse space in several years now. And we have no plans to do so. Welcome to the Dems’ economy. No wonder new jobless claims are over 500,000 in the last month.

In the case of the CPSIA, the Dems are only too happy to whack us with heavy regulations, all justified by imaginary benefits. The imaginary benefits of the new CPSIA regulations are as invisible as the imaginary problems they are designed to solve. The absence of data on effectiveness is matched by the absence of data suggesting that there was a problem in the first place – the “know nothing’s” jacked up your costs and destabilized your business to no purpose. Now Mr. Obama wants to fix it all with another handout. Throwing money at the problem is new style. And after that handout is parcelled out, the Dems will proceed to raise taxes on higher income individuals (read, small business owners, particularly S Corp owners) to attempt to staunch the hemorrhaging Federal deficit, and then express “shock” at the sluggish economy. No doubt the next step will have to be more handouts and perhaps Cap-and-Trade to raise more costs. What a great cycle. . . .

Is there another way? Well, as for small businesses in the children’s product market, I would note that the voluminous new CSPIA rules (two feet high and growing) impose massive costs on industry (to comply) AND on government (to enforce). I think of the stupid health official bent on enforcing his food handler’s license rule against the little girl in Portland operating a lemonade stand – many of the new CPSIA rules are pointless from a safety standpoint and cost big money to administer as well as to comply with. If the Dems seriously want to stimulate the economy and add jobs, here’s an efficient way to do it for NO out-of-pocket cost – DROP your boundless regulations and go back to something more modest and manageable. This also means that the Obamite idea that life is better with lots more government needs to be shelved. I submit the recent rules on testing frequency and “reasonable” testing programs as evidence that inviting bureaucrats to become involved in operating businesses brings nothing but trouble, inefficiency and devastation. There must be a better way.

Hey, I figured out some time ago that I am talking to myself here. The CPSC certainly doesn’t care or understand what I am talking about (or else they might have done something about it perhaps 300 blogposts ago). The Democrats in Congress likewise are deaf and disinterested. I cannot name a single Democrat, NOT ONE SINGLE DEMOCRAT, who will stand up in front of their peers and demand significant amendment or revocation of the CPSIA. The Dems are in lockstep agreement – no light shines in if your head is in the sand, after all.

You can’t work with people like this.

I urge you (URGE YOU) to select the CPSIA perpetrator of your choosing and WORK to knock them out of Congress in this election cycle. Remember – they are trying to put YOU out of business. You need to return the favor.

Return the favor . . . this is my theme song until polls close on November 2. Then the party begins.

Read more here:
CPSIA – Obama Doesn’t Get It . . . .

CPSIA – Recall of Safe Products Continues to Reverberate

The national convulsions (call it “brain softening”) induced by the CPSC’s action in forcing McDonald’s to recall admittedly SAFE Shrek drinking glasses continued to spin out of control today. Following their usual election year script of harshly dealing with invented crises to impress the easily-duped public, Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak, two Democratic leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent letters today to McDonald’s and the manufacturer of the glasses, ARC International, demanding information to blow this non-issue up into a mega-crisis.

Before I summarize how Waxman and Stupak worked to spread regulatory disease far and wide, I think we all owe a big THANK YOU to the CPSC for so vigilantly protecting us from these safe products. There is no doubt that we were all victims of a false sense of security, not knowing that atoms of cadmium might be lurking on the outside of drinking glasses. Of course, cadmium atoms also lurk in our food, in our water, in our air, in our dirt AND on countless glasses in our homes sold over preceding decades without incident – but, heck, that’s a little too science-y, don’t you think? Only by exposing that these glasses are SAFE while at the VERY SAME TIME pushing for a highly-publicized recall and resulting media panic, did the CPSC reveal that we were actually safe without even knowing it – and yet they STILL acted to protect us! What a great bunch of guys and gals we have at the CPSC, we are so lucky. No really, thank YOU Consumer Product Safety Commission!

Mssrs. Waxman and Stupak sent off two letters demanding lots of “incriminating” information, such as:

• A list of all manufacturers and distributors that supply McDonald’s with children’s products. McDonald’s interest in keeping its suppliers’ identities confidential as a trade secret is no never mind. After all, the glasses they recalled are SAFE, so you can’t take ANY chances. And let’s not forget the FACT that the other McDonald’s items are NOT suspected of ANY violation of ANY law. This is Mr. Waxman’s wizardry to keep us all so safe. . . .
• A list of all the “steps” McDonald’s takes to ensure that children’s products do not contain hazardous materials. The FACT that the CPSC has declared these glasses SAFE does not apparently matter in this inquiry, raising the question of what Waxman and Stupak mean by “hazardous materials”. Presumably then, the presence of an atom of cadmium might meet their “standard” for hazardous materials. In utopia, there is no cadmium. Waxman and Stupak represent the 1st and 8th Congressional Districts of Utopia, respectively.
• The identity of the supplier of the enamel on the SAFE glasses. This identity had previously been withheld by ARC, showing character by attempting to keep the crisis away from an innocent supplier. As ARC said in a recent newspaper report, “[it] could have been any glass company. . . . We all do the same thing using materials from the same suppliers.”

I find it ironic that the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is none other than Michael Burgess. Burgess is a doctor (M.D.). Maybe he has a sense of what constitutes an actual hazard to human health. If he does, I hope he shares it with his colleagues on the other side of the aisle. . . .

Hey, let’s not get too paranoid here. No one is going to pay attention to this mass hysteria or change how they regard the federal safety laws. This mega-screwing of two reputable companies over admittedly SAFE products is not relevant to the rest of us. Why? They’ll never be interested in us because we all make . . . SAFE PRODUCTS.

Oh, crap.

Read more here:
CPSIA – Recall of Safe Products Continues to Reverberate

CPSIA – Anne Northup’s Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal

For those of you who may have missed it over the holidays, here is Commissioner Anne Northup’s Op-Ed in Thursday’s WSJ:

OPINION
DECEMBER 24, 2009
12:07 A.M. ET

There Is No Joy in Toyland
The overreach of a child-safety law is killing American jobs and businesses. It’s not too late for some common-sense changes.

By ANNE M. NORTHUP

With the unemployment rate stubbornly high and President Obama focused on job creation, it’s a perfect time for Congress to revisit a law that’s making our economic problems worse, and spoiling Christmas for many kids to boot.

Thanks to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), small businesses like Baby Sprout Naturals and Whimsical Walney have already closed their doors. And some 40% of companies responding to a Toy Industry Association survey planned to eliminate jobs this year because the cost and complexity of compliance with this law is too great. For manufacturers and sellers of children’s products, perhaps a renewed interest in saving small businesses comes in the nick of time.

The safety legislation, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2008, is a study in the law of unintended consequences. The new law reduced the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s longstanding discretion to act in response to genuine risks, substituting instead the rigid, broad-brush, and unscientific judgment of Congress.

Though written in response to dozens of recalls of Chinese-made toys with lead paint, the law goes well beyond lead paint (which poses an undeniable risk to children) to ban all children’s products that contain a component with more than three one-hundredths of 1% lead. This means such ordinary items as zippers, buttons, belts, the hinge on a child’s dresser—and even that bicycle from Santa Claus—are outlawed.

These products often contain lead in excess of the new legal limit, but unlike lead surface paint, this lead is contained within the metal or other substrate material. The lead can rub off these items in miniscule amounts detectable only with sensitive lab equipment, but it is not “bioavailable”—meaning it is unable to be extracted and absorbed into a child’s bloodstream. By failing to distinguish between easily absorbable lead in paint and not easily absorbable lead in other materials, the legislation was a dramatic overreach.

It gets worse. In addition to banning components that do not create a lead hazard for children, the law also imposes onerous product testing by outside labs that smaller manufacturers and handicraft makers simply cannot afford. Instead of spending money to expand and create jobs, companies have diverted billions of dollars so far to destroy innocuous but noncompliant inventory, as well as to understand and meet complex new compliance obligations.

Major charities, like Goodwill Industries and the Salvation Army, have publicly estimated lost inventory and disposal costs at $100 million to $170 million in secondhand children’s clothing—such as winter coats with metal snaps—that’s not affordable to test for compliance, yet still needed by many families.

Bicycle manufacturers have re-engineered dozens of parts from more expensive and less environmentally friendly materials to replace handle bars, spokes, tire valve stems and other harmless metal parts that contain lead.

To cope with annual testing costs running to half a million dollars or more, domestic retailers and manufacturers like Challenge & Fun, Inc., Constructive Playthings, and ETA Cuisenaire (a maker of educational tools), have reduced payrolls or limited product lines. Many small apparel companies, including JenLynnDesigns, have either closed shop or exited the children’s apparel market completely.

In just the first eight months after enactment, the Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that the 2008 safety law cost businesses in the “billions of dollars range,” including: more than $2 billion in losses to the toy industry; $200 million in potentially violative inventory for members of one apparel industry group (the California Fashion Association); and an estimated $1 billion in annual losses reported by the Motorcycle Industry Council for lost sales of youth model motorbikes and off-road vehicles. Several popular German toymakers such as Selecta Spielzeug, whose products comply with stringent EU regulations, have stopped selling their toys in this country. Consumers are facing higher prices for a smaller variety of products that are no safer than before.

Some of the commission’s decisions have made matters worse. Last month my colleagues in the majority interpreted one exclusion built into the statute based on the absorbability of lead so inflexibly that not a single children’s product could qualify for it. That vote denied a petition for exemption to brass axle collars on toy cars even though—as one majority commissioner admitted—the commission’s staff would have no concerns about letting their own children play with them. The commission thus decided that the law prohibits the sale of toys that impart less lead than the Food and Drug Administration allows in a piece of candy.

For the past several months, American businesses have been caught in the middle of a classic standoff between the federal commissioners in the majority, who argue that the statute ties their hands, and members of Congress, who claim they wrote flexibility into the law and blame the commission for any harsh consequences. Although the commission steadfastly refused to reach out to Congress to seek clarifications to the law, Congress has now reached out to us—asking the agency last week for a list of recommendations to amend the statute.

Thankfully the commission responded, in part, by agreeing to extend the stay on testing and certification for lead content. This window gives Congress time to consider such common-sense changes as: allowing for higher lead content in products like bicycles where only a tiny amount could be absorbed; restoring the commission’s longstanding discretion to focus its efforts in response to genuine risks; lowering the age range covered by the law so that products for 12-year-old children and 12-month-old babies are not treated identically; and eliminating the retroactive effect of the law—which disproportionately affects libraries and thrift stores. Hopefully, this request from Congress will result in real changes to the law, not a half-hearted effort on our part or Congress’s to avoid responsibility for the problem.

President Obama could help this process along by urging Congress to pursue a bipartisan fix. We can protect children from harmful products without striking a blow against the teetering American economy—but we must act quickly. Otherwise, the CPSIA’s Grinch-like rules will needlessly cost our country more jobs and reduce the opportunity for small businesses to help lead our country out of recession.

Ms. Northup is a Republican commissioner on the Consumer Product Safety Commission. She represented Louisville, Ky., in Congress from 1997-2006.

Read more here:
CPSIA – Anne Northup’s Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal

CPSIA – Consumer Groups are Grasping at Straws

Last week, in their usual pre-Xmas slanderfest, the full range of consumer groups unleashed their annual list of bad and dangerous toy lists on a pandering media. The pickin’s were slim this year, but that didn’t stop them.

I have heard from friends outside the toy industry who expressed horror and disbelief at these widely-publicized attacks. Toy industry insiders are used to it, frankly. Actually, speaking candidly, some of these annual efforts are useful and appreciated. I think that bad products (generally reflecting poor judgment, nothing more venal than that) have been usefully exposed by these groups in the past. However, of late the consumer groups have been obsessed by “toxics” – pushing the notion that toys are poisonous, rather than simply irresponsibly-designed. I think the reason is simple – the media and reactive politicians respond to this accusation, so why give up a “good thing”? You have to wonder if their goal is to simply make toys safer. Their attacks are remain more vicious than in the past and much more pointed.

The consumer group continue to package the idea that consumers do not realize that “no government agency tests toys before they are put on the shelves.” This self-declared “fact” is an essential justification of their “precautionary principle” – that is, we need an activist government approving everything before you get your hands on it. President Obama’s assertion on Late Night with David Letterman that we need a lot more government these days is right in line with the precautionary principle. Others call this movement the Nanny State.

The precautionary principle holds that no risk is too small to address – in advance. Thus, the neurosis underlying the assertion that Americans think the government must be “testing” toys before they are sold is the same as Consumer Union’s David Pittle’s admission in the TSCP hearing (beginning at about 90 minutes in the video) that he is “nervous” when he buys a toy (not sure what or whom to trust), and ergo, his rules for how manufacturers run their businesses must be imposed. Mr. Pittle’s demands seem designed to relieve his anxieties, rather than improve safety. [He might contend that it is one and the same but I disagree.] Inciting terror through various means, the consumer groups place a real emphasis on how consumers FEEL and whether products and their manufacturers have earned consumer confidence (an emotional standard), not whether (objectively or actually), the products are actually safe.

Perhaps your mother told you once that it is hard to control how others feel – you can only control what you do and how you do it. Maybe she should be running Congress . . . .

In any event, the number of offending children’s products uncovered this year by the consumer groups is rather meagre. As previously noted, Center for Environmental Health (CEH) drummed up seven items after six weeks of testing on 250 items. The CEH rogue’s gallery featured NO soluble lead in toys, but did feature one pair of shoes with lead in the soles . . . a pair of sandals with lead in the insole . . . a trinket with a bad connector link . . . a poncho with lead in the vinyl material, etc. And now the PIRGs have joined in the fun. The annual Trouble in Toyland report was issued this week by national PIRG and the equally hyperbolic Illinois PIRG issued its own “Chemical Compliance: Testing for Toxics in Children’s Products” report. [I am only focusing on lead and phthalates in these reports.] The PIRG “bounty”: a zipper “pull” and a yellow cow with lead-in-paint, one piece of lead jewelry, and two toys with phthalates (one an “unidentified” phthalate that might not be illegal, and the other just slightly over the limit). Illinois PIRG found only a small handful of violative products: only six of 87 products tested positive for violative lead levels using XRF guns, winnowing down to three items when tested by an independent lab.

Illinois PIRG failed to find lead or phthalates in the items featured in this TV segment. Unfortunately, that makes bad TV, so the head of Illinois PIRG lowered the standard to create something new to worry about (watch from 1:00 for 30 seconds in the video): “Most of the toys PIRG bought at target came up clean. But three of the toys had small amounts of lead — MUCH LESS THAN the current safety standard but enough for the gun to detect. ‘Really, children shouldn’t be exposed to lead at all,’ said [Brian] Imus.” [Emphasis added]

An implication of the 2009 reports is that the onerous new CPSIA lead standards are simply not tough enough. For instance, PIRG says “Regulations should simply ban lead except at trace amounts (90-100 ppm), whether in paint, coatings or any toys, jewelry or other products for use by children under 12 years old.” Where did this come from? Some ideas:

• They are laying the groundwork for the August 2011 determination by the CPSC about implementing a 100 ppm lead limit. To do so, the agency must conclude that it is “technologically feasible” as defined in the CPSIA.
• The groups are desperate to make their work seem relevant and constructive.
• They are confused or want to confuse consumers about HOW lead harms children, ignoring, covering up or blurring important distinctions between bio-available lead and inaccessible lead.

The latter point is so critical to understand. Lead can only harm a child if it gets into the bloodstream. Notably, lead is present throughout the environment (lead is found in at least 40 ppm concentrations in dirt, unless you are referring to the Obama’s vegetable garden which has lead in concentrations of 93 ppm). Lead is in our food, drink and air, so kids consume it all the time. Apparently, lead in certain amounts must not be a problem, or else we would all have suffered reduced IQs (no comment in my case). The lead that should concern us is soluble lead, as in lead-in-paint and in jewelry, because it can easily get into the bloodstream. In any event, PIRG knows that toys and children’s products aren’t the problem. In their report, they cite a 2005 article (“Lead Exposure in Children: Prevention, Detection and Management,” Pediatrics, 1036-1048 (October 2005)) which makes clear that the problem with childhood blood lead levels is in lead-in-paint used in housing. There is NO mention anywhere that I can find where academic studies blame national blood lead levels on toys, etc., and likewise, I find all credit for lowering blood lead levels is given to efforts to rid the world of lead-in-paint in housing. Period.

So why does PIRG and its brethren continue to flog the notion that lead in all manifestations is dangerous? And why are they now saying that ANY lead, even below the draconian levels in the current law, is dangerous to children’s health?

Questions worth pondering.

Finally, not content to blur the lines on lead, PIRG also recommends that the phthalates ban be extended: “CPSC should ban phthalates in toys and other products intended for children under five and work with the Federal Trade Commission to ensure that toys labeled ‘phthalate-free’ do not contain phthalates.” So apparently PIRG wants ALL phthalates eliminated from toys, no matter the absence of science behind their new manic fear. Even more importantly, they apparently concede that the blanket ban on six phthalates for toys intended for children 6-12 is excessive and damaging. At least that’s a positive contribution!

So another Xmas toy bashing seems to be behind us. The pseudo-science underlying the consumer groups’ attacks on children’s products was again exposed, as was the basic integrity and safety of the marketplace. Does that do us any good? That remains to be seen. Perhaps the leadership at the CPSC will tire of this relentless war (which is eroding their professional reputations) and do something to get Congress to fix a truly defective and damaging law. Let’s hope so.

Read more here:
CPSIA – Consumer Groups are Grasping at Straws

CPSIA – My Ruling on Brass Bushings

The Learning Curve request for exemption for brass bushings on their toy cars is still pending at the CPSC. It is supposedly up for a vote this week. As I have noted in two prior blogposts, this decision will set an important precedent for a number of other products. If, as expected, the Commission votes down the LCI request, brass will be essentially banned in all children’s products, except for the pretzel logic of the pen decision (previously derided in this space). [The logic in the pen decision has never reappeared in another CPSC decision, and therefore should not be used as precedent for ANY other situation under the CPSIA until it actually reappears as part of CPSC common law. The pen decision was simply a gift to the writing implement industry, such as a convoluted and fantastic legal decision can be a gift.]

Among the anticipated victims of the LCI decision (to recap):

• Toys
• Connectors of all kinds
• Brass zippers, grommets and other apparel and footwear components and accessories
• Brass instruments (rentals to schools, certainly), musical bells and certain strings used in string instruments
• Children’s jewelry

It is worth noting, amateur scientists in Congress, that brass has germicidal properties which is one reason why brass is used in doorknobs (icky germs!). Might actually be useful in some children’s products for this reason . . . .

The presence of brass in daily life is an immutable fact. If the CPSC bans brass in children’s products because of the idiotic CPSIA, NOTHING will eliminate the following uses of brass in the daily life of children:

• House keys (good for sucking)
• Doorknobs and locks (touching and licking?)
• Plumbing fixtures and drinking fountains (touching and sucking)
• Pipes to convey potable water (assuming those pipes aren’t made of pure lead)
• Components in cell phones (definitely good for licking)
• Clocks, antiques, artwork (touching)
• Railings (licking)
• Jewelry (sucking)
• Guns and ammunition (no comment)
• Tools (you can poke out an eye with a tool!)
• Etc. etc. etc.

This does not even address the widespread presence of lead in, among other things, our food system, our potable water and our air. There are federal safety standards for allowable lead content in each category. Children are known to consume food, water and air throughout their daily lives without interruption. The obliviousness of the CPSIA in setting such stiff standards for bio-unavailable lead-in-substrate in children’s products in the context of these other lead instances is shameful – and the source of the current issues with brass.

The CPSC Staff has determined that the CPSIA does not allow an exemption for brass bushings. In the understatement of the year, the staff concluded “that the estimated exposure to lead from children’s contact with the [LCI] die-cast toys would have little impact on the blood lead level.” Staff states clearly that they consider brass bushings safe and that the lead transmission from brass bushings is inconsequential and certainly not rising to the level of a hazardous substance. Unfortunately, the Commission has thus far shown no interest in taking bold stands and rejecting the legitimate legal (but nonsensical) conclusions of the CPSC Staff under the CPSIA. Common sense be damned.

In a perfect world (what a joke), the Commission’s decision in this case would hold that although LCI brass bushings are caught up in the limits of the CPSIA, they present NO substantial hazard to children, and therefore using their seldom-used discretion, the Commission grants an exemption for brass bushings in children’s products conditionally. The decision would explicitly state that this decision should be taken as precedent for brass in all children’s products (to cut down on repetitive exemption requests). The decision would be dependent on TWO CONDITIONS, namely that: (a) the particular use of brass in children’s products is not known or held by CPSC Staff to present a substantial hazard to children under the FHSA, and (b) the exemption will be lifted when Congress acts to ban brass from everyday life and takes concrete steps to retrofit America for a brass-free future, replacing all brass doorknobs, artwork, cell phones, keys and locks, plumbing fixtures and water pipes (including, what the heck, lead pipes, too) and so on. For so long as brass remains part of children’s daily life in their home and school environments, the CPSC will not act to restrict brass in children’s products.

The Commission, using common sense not previously known in the CPSIA era, would note that banning brass bushings would be utterly ineffective to change the net exposure of children to lead in their lives but would wreak terrible losses upon the marketplace. Senseless economic destruction is un-American and lacks a social conscience since the losses will be spread ratably throughout society among suppliers, sellers and consumers of all things brass. Finally, the Commission would note that unless and until its decisions to restrict children’s products materially impact safety, the Commission will not keep safe products or components off the market for technical violations of the CPSIA. Brass bushings, in my fantasy, would be granted an exemption to the awful CPSIA.

This idle fantasy can come true if the Commission summons up the courage to act sensibly and to stop being complicit in the shoddy legislative work of Congress. As an independent agency of the U.S. government, NOT a subsidiary of the legislative branch or an organ of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the CPSC has the authority to make up its own mind and to set rational policy. It’s time that the Commission draw a line for one and all to see. Especially Mr. Waxman.

Read more here:
CPSIA – My Ruling on Brass Bushings

CPSIA – Consider the Source (Part II)

From an article in today’s BNA entitled “Need for CPSIA Changes Debated”, “In an interview with BNA, Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids in Danger, praised the commission’s July decision on fashion jewelry accessories. Cowles told BNA that lead is a severe toxin with no safe level. She added that while more common sense could be applied to determining which products are hazardous, consumers overall do not want products containing lead. “People will come up with other ways to put [jewelry] on children’s clothing that isn’t toxic. Whether the lead [in rhinestones] leaches out fully, it’s hard to know, but we don’t want lead in our children’s products. We will come up with other ways to decorate our clothes,” Cowles said.” There are other quotes from consumer groups in this article that set my blood ablaze, but I thought this one deserves special “heralding”. I should note that I have written about rhinestones extensively, and debunked the opinion expressed by the estimable Ms. Cowles thoroughly. [See my "Jewelry" tags.] You may wonder, why do I care so much about rhinestones. Our business does not use rhinestones, so what’s the big deal for me? Rhinestones is a poster child for the stupidity of the law. The impact of the CPSIA on rhinestones is the impact that is bedeviling the entire children’s product industry, from toys to books to shoes to bedding to what-have-you. If rhinestones go down, safe as they are, we all go down. If we can save rhinestones on a rational and fair basis, perhaps the rest of us will get fairer treatment. That said, I have a couple comments on Ms. Cowles’ remarks. First of all, she is fear mongering, not advocating for you and your children. She says rhinestones are “toxic” – I say “prove it”. The people behind the CPSIA are left with few options to save their precious law but to deceive the general public about health risks. The case on rhinestones is out there to be examined by Ms. Cowles. Why not attack rhinestones with data and analysis? Because no data or analysis exists to weaken the case FOR rhinestones. The “there’s no safe level of lead” mantra is faulty. We already consume plenty of lead in our air, our food and our water daily. The rationale that trace presence of lead in children’s products is somehow the health “tipping point” has never been proven and frankly cannot be asserted on a reasoned, scientific basis. The lead we consume in our normal daily activities dwarfs the lead you might ingest from casual contact with children’s products. If there really is “no safe level for lead”, then our wise Congress should attack the big sources of lead first, and leave the rest of us for later. Second, Ms. Cowles is sending a lot of people down the river with her casual condemnation of rhinestones. I would note that many industries use rhinestones in their products. The people who run those companies, are employed by those companies, are supported by income from those companies, trade with those companies or value those products in their lives, will ALL lose if the likes of Ms. Cowles get to run our society. Does that make ANY sense to ANYONE (besides Ms. Cowles)? I keep thinking of the prescription she offers for living a safe and wondrous life. She says we will (and should) find something else to decorate our products with. Perhaps Ms. Cowles decorates herself with the jewels from Pretty, Pretty Princess . That’s what she is suggesting, that we get used to plastic jewelry. Perhaps Ms. Cowles can live with getting gifts for her kids from a vending machine, but that’s not how I want to live. As I have noted before, inexpensive stones are a way for people to bedeck kids with jewelry inexpensively. Rhinestones are important to a lot of people, some of whom may not have the economic wherewithal to switch to diamonds and rubies. In addition, it’s an inexpensive way to let little kids have a bit of bling. If you are trying to make your little kids look special for social, cultural or religious reasons, I think Palladium earrings may be somewhat impractical for most people. Little kids to tend to outgrow their clothing and shoes quickly. Parents can’t really afford to buy and rebuy clothing and jewelry using precious stones as their kids grow, and may never warm up to Pretty, Pretty Princess jewelry. If this is the way it has to be, I think we should think more insightfully about who is writing the rules for our society. Increasingly, the recommendations of consumer advocates are ringing more and more hollow. How crazy has the world become? Consider this quote from the November 2008 “Trouble in Toyland” report issued by the Vermont PIRG: “Some children’s toys, jewelry and cosmetics may contain toxic chemicals, especially lead and toxic phthalates. . . . PHTHALATES AND OTHER CHEMICALS Avoid toys made of PVC plastic; which often contains phthalate softeners. Choose unpainted wooden or cloth toys instead.” Yes, PIRG wants us to use cloth toys and plain unpainted wooden toys to be “safe”. But how “safe” are these toys? The CPSC, after due consideration, has informed us in their new phthalates testing standard : “Examples of materials that do not normally contain phthalates and, therefore, might not require testing or certification are . . . Natural wood [and] Textiles made from natural fibers, such as cotton or wool . . . .” Uh-oh! PIRG is telling you to buy products that MIGHT contain phthalates! Ouch. [To be fair, I have no idea how phthalates would get in there, but heck, the CPSC says they MIGHT. They must know something I don't.] So PIRG has it wrong – we can’t even play with cloth toys or wood. What’s left? Rocks. Oh, no – rocks need to be tested for lead, phthalates and sharp points! Well, perhaps after the Residential Rock Roundup is wrapped up, we will all be safe to move into caves to play with our rocks. Ms. Cowles, get your own cave – you can’t play with my rocks.

View post:
CPSIA – Consider the Source (Part II)

CPSIA – My Letter to Inez Tenenbaum (9-17-09)

September 17, 2009 VIA FEDERAL EXPRESS The Honorable Inez Tenenbaum Chairman U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission 4330 East West Highway Bethesda, MD 20814 Re: Safety of Rhinestones and Crystals Dear Chairman Tenenbaum: I am writing on behalf of the Alliance for Children’s Product Safety, an organization comprised of small businesses in many industries impacted by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). Of particular concern to Alliance members is the “unintended consequences” of the CPSIA, namely that many safe products will be explicitly or effectively forced from the market despite sterling safety records, and that many viable and law-abiding businesses will be economically crippled (or worse) by new testing, labeling and other obligations and liabilities under the new law. We are aware of your recent testimony at a CPSIA oversight hearing conducted by the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection on September 10, 2009. In your testimony, you expressed concern that swallowing “50 beads” (referring to rhinestones, glass beads or crystals) might lead to measurable change in blood lead levels and would hence be considered “unsafe.” You also indicated that your statement of July 17, 2009 explaining your vote to deny the Section 101(b) exclusion request of the Fashion Jewelry Trade Association and other organizations for such beads was “poorly worded,” and the level of lead in such beads was in fact a cause for concern. You mentioned, in particular, beads with lead levels of 23,000 ppm. We are puzzled by this testimony and kindly request clarification. Notably, you wrote in your statement of July 17 that “Commission staff recognized that most crystal and glass beads do not appear to pose a serious health risk to children.” You also stated clearly that risk assessment by the Commission “appears to be in direct conflict with the statutory language [of the CPSIA]” and therefore the agency is foreclosed from considering factors such as “bioavailability of lead, accessibility of the lead to children, foreseeable use and abuse, foreseeable duration of exposure, marketing and life cycle of the product” in any exemption proceeding. We are therefore confused by your testimony that your vote against the exclusion request was actually motivated by a safety concern (risk assessment). The clarity and consistency of CPSC administration of the CPSIA is a serious issue for businesses attempting to comply with the new law. It is well-known that confusion among the regulated industries has caused market chaos and considerable business losses. The rhinestones decision, followed by your recent Congressional testimony, creates serious new issues that will further confuse those trying to comply with the law. We request that the Commission provide clarification on your July 17 contention that exemption requests will be made without regard to risk assessment. If risk assessment is not permitted by the CPSIA in such proceedings (as has been consistently stated by you as well as by Commissioners Nord and Moore), we request that the Commission explain the relevance of the safety considerations of swallowing 50 rhinestones on the rhinestones exemption request decision. If your testimony before Congress indicates that risk assessment is now permitted in CPSIA exemption proceedings, please explain the legal basis for this change in statutory interpretation. We believe that the terms of the CPSIA require that the CPSC deny the exclusion request for rhinestones based solely on the lead levels in the stones; however, we do not believe rhinestones, crystals or glass beads present any health issue for children. Rhinestones are well-known to be safe. These stones are a classic “innocent victim” of CPSIA, like so many other safe product classes similarly affected. We request the information that you used to support your testimony that swallowing 50 beads present a health risk to children. In particular, we believe this conclusion is dependent on two theses: a. That swallowing 50 beads is a “foreseeable use and abuse”. b. That swallowing 50 beads will cause a measurable change in blood lead levels (one micro-gram per deciliter of blood). Likelihood of Swallowing 50 Beads. Based on a review of medical literature, the risk of swallowing 50 beads is minimal for “normal” children. For instance, in “Foreign-Body Ingestion in Children: Experience With 1,265 Cases”, Journal of Pediatric Surgery, Vol. 10, No. 10 (October, 1999), pp. 1472-1476, the authors document 552 cases of proven foreign body ingestion but do not indicate any record of jewels being ingested. Although NEISS data (this author reviewed data from 2005) shows that jewelry is known to be ingested by children, many cases in the database are not proven (merely suspected) or involve products not relevant to this issue, and in the vast majority of cases, the swallowing are inadvertent or accidental. The accidental nature of ingestion of jewelry is quite relevant here, as the accidental ingestion of four bracelets or 20 rings in incontestably improbable. In addition, such a serious incident would take a great deal of time and an intent to create mischief, none of which is considered a “foreseeable use and abuse” of a children’s product. It is notable that rhinestones are not meant to be ingested, have no flavor or smell and are, in fact, rocks. Rocks are not food and are unlikely to be ingested by children with normal mental health or normal intelligence. On February 2, 2009, the Fashion Jewelry Trade Association and related organizations submitted a request for exclusion of these stones from the lead limits of the CPSIA under Section 101(b) (the “February 2 Letter”). In that letter, they provided industry data on the use of decorative stones in jewelry. Notably, the February 2 letter indicates that jewelry intended for children six years or younger contains between 4-15 stones. Thus, a child of six years of age or younger would have to consume 4-13 pieces of his/her jewelry to swallow 50 beads. This appears to be a highly unusual event. We therefore request that CPSC provide data supporting your contention that swallowing 50 beads is a “foreseeable use or abuse” of children’s products containing rhinestones, crystals or glass beads.. Likelihood of Blood Lead Level Changes. In their February 2 letter, the Fashion Jewelry Trade Association and related organizations provided a technical study entitled “Evaluation of Lead in Crystal Beads and Rhinestones” prepared by the respected consulting company, Exponent. In its study, Exponent calculates the lead leaching rate of rhinestones (with lead levels in excess of 600 ppm) in saline (mouthing, 0.15 micro-grams per gram of stones) and acid extraction (ingestion, 0.52 micro-grams per gram of stones). Likewise, it notes that one gram of the most common size of such stones (10PP) equal 333 stones. [Obviously, larger stones require fewer stones to reach one gram in mass, but the analytical results are similar.] Studies of the daily intake of lead for children demonstrate that lead is present throughout the food system and is present in our air and water as well. As a consequence, children will inevitably consume lead throughout the day by simply breathing, eating and drinking water. [It is well-accepted that the largest source for childhood lead is house paint, followed by dirt and air.] A recent study of dietary intake of lead by children in India indicates that tolerable daily intake of lead far exceeds 10 micro-grams per day (see “Dietary and Inhalation Intake of Lead and Estimation of Blood Lead Levels in Adults and Children in Kanpur, India”, Risk Analysis, Vol. 25, No. 6, pp. 1573-1588, December 2005 ). Similarly, the Exponent study submitted on February 2 indicates that the FDA has determined that six micro-grams of lead per day is required to produce a one micro-gram of lead per deciliter change in blood lead levels in children six years old or younger. Thus, to produce such a change in blood lead levels from jewels would require sustained daily ingestion of 12 grams of stones (roughly 4,000 stones or hundreds of pieces of jewelry) or mouthing of 42 grams of stones (roughly 14,000 stones or more than 1,000 pieces of jewelry). Clearly, this is unlikely to occur, particularly accidentally. It goes without saying that ingestion of 50 beads is far more likely to result in physical injury because of intestinal blockage or similar maladies than from lead poisoning. We do not believe any NEISS cases involving the accidental ingestion of jewels were considered a lead poisoning risk by the attending physicians. We kindly request that the CPSC provide data on any incident in the NEISS database documenting that the attending physician considered lead poisoning a risk from the ingestion of jewels. We also kindly request that the CPSC provide back-up data and analysis to support your assertion that the CPSC “could not determine” whether swallowing 50 beads will cause a measurable change in blood lead levels. The Need for Flexibility. Finally, we note that in last week’s hearings, Rep. George Radanovich asked you whether you needed “flexibility so [you] can exempt safe products”. You replied that it was ‘premature” for you to answer that question. We are concerned by your unwillingness to answer this question definitively and kindly request an explanation as to why it is “premature” to ask for flexibility to exempt safe products from the lead limits of the CPSIA. Given that the agency has a limited budget, please explain how the Commission will deploy its resources to regulate and supervise safe products, when the need to deal with unsafe products or safety risks is so overwhelmingly large. Thank you for your prompt consideration of this important matter. Sincerely, Richard Woldenberg Chairman Alliance for Children’s Product Safety cc: Commissioner Robert Adler Commissioner Thomas Moore Commissioner Nancy Nord Commissioner Anne Northrup

Read this article:
CPSIA – My Letter to Inez Tenenbaum (9-17-09)