Food Safety In the News

This holiday season, more and more parents and toy-givers are saying no to children's toys that pose threats ranging from lead paint to small, ingestible magnets.

The wave of recalls of dangerous toys hasn't ended. New findings from U.S. Public Research Interest Group's 22nd annual Trouble In Toyland report show that hazards remain on store shelves. We found hazards from lead and other toxic chemicals in toys, jewelry and children's cosmetics; several toys with dangerous small magnets; and a variety of toys that pose choking hazards.

The good news is that Congress is taking a close look at improving our product safety system for the first time in nearly 20 years.

It is now more widely known that the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission does not test consumer products before they appear on store shelves. Worse, the manufacturers, importers and retailers who are supposed to guarantee that the products they sell meet all safety standards – from chainsaws and toasters to Barbie dolls and Thomas the Tank Engine trains – have fallen down on the job.

We also know that the commission has a big job to do on a little budget. It has only one full-time toy tester and just 15 import inspectors spread across hundreds of ports of entry.

Congress can improve our product safety system this year. Any product safety bill it sends to the president must do four things:

• Ban lead at any level higher than trace amounts in paint and in any jewelry, toy or other product intended for children under 12. Current proposals would limit lead to an adequate, although not ideal, level of 90 parts per million. It is critical, however, that all proposed exceptions to that low level be rejected.

• Give the commission a bigger budget, more staff and more power to punish corporate wrongdoers. Companies will comply with the law from the start when they know they will take a real hit to the bottom line if they don't. Current Senate proposals would increase penalties significantly, to $100 million, but the House has thus far resisted imposing significant penalties on wrongdoers. The commission should also have greater authority to better inform families about dangerous products. Current law allows companies to control disclosure of information about their dangerous products.

• Enact stronger rules to guarantee import safety. Once-promising proposals to require independent third-party testing of imports have been watered down by manufacturer insistence that their own labs are good enough. This summer, Mattel admitted that it had relied on a Chinese supplier's promise that its toys met lead paint standards without testing them in their own labs. That's not good enough.

• Allow state legislatures and state attorneys general to help police the product safety marketplace. We need 51 consumer cops on the beat, not just one.

Unfortunately, while the bill being readied for Senate floor action achieves most of the reforms necessary to protect children and strengthen the commission, a pending House bill is weaker.

The reform bill before a House committee doesn't even regulate the dangerous small magnets thought to be responsible for the death of one boy and for emergency intestinal surgeries for two dozen others. Worse, it doesn't give state attorneys general all the authority they need to help protect kids.

Congress must listen to the American families who have stopped buying toys because they've lost confidence in their safety. The best gift Congress can give America's littlest consumers this year is to better protect them from dangerous toys.

About the writer: Pedro Morillas is the legislative advocate for California Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public research advocacy organization in Sacramento.