Health Alert: Toxic Lead in Baby Products!
Well, if it wasn’t bad enough having lead in kids’ lunch boxes, now it’s in their bibs. What’s next? Baby’s teething rings? What is so unusual about this story is that if it weren’t for a grandmother’s concern for her grandchildren, Walmart may still be selling these lead-filled baby bibs. How did a grandmother from a suburban village in Mount Prospect, IL, get Wal-Mart’s attention to this issue and actually get them to do something about it?
In 2005, Marilyn Furer had seen a story on a local news station about dangerous lead levels being found in the vinyl in children’s lunchboxes and grew concerned about her school-age granddaughters who were living in Florida. So, what’s a grandmother to do? Well, while visiting them, she purchased home lead-testing kits and checked the 5 plastic lunchboxes that the girls owned. Three contained lead and were promptly thrown in the trash.
Soon after a new grandson was born she went to Wal-Mart and bought a whole assortment of vinyl baby bibs. While watching her grandson eat one day, she noticed that he was sucking on the bib around his neck. She immediately thought of the vinyl lunch boxes and grabbed her trusted lead-testing kit. What she discovered shocked and concerned her. Of the 20 bibs that Ms. Furer swiped with the tester, 8 tested positive for lead. What alarmed her the most was that the testing swab turned hot, hot pink. It was probably the deepest pink you could imagine. It was beyond her comprehension that that much lead would be found in a baby bib. What she found out was that the offending bibs were made by Hamco Baby Products under Wal-Mart’s Baby Connection brand name and were sold exclusively at Wal-Mart beginning in 2004. The total number sold were 60,000 in Illinois alone.
Ms. Furer notified the Center for Environmental Health, (the lunchbox lead whistle blower), who commissioned independent testing which confirmed the dangerous lead levels. One bib showed a lead level of 9,700 parts per million (ppm), more than 16 times the legal limit. The CEH initiated legal action. And, after contacting Wal-Mart regarding this serious issue, they voluntarily pulled three baby bib products manufactured by Hamco from its store shelves nationwide.
However, the Consumer Safety Products Commission (CSPC) has tested these bibs and “determined” that they do not present a safety hazard. This is what they had to say:
The CPSC staff’s risk assessment concludes that none of the bibs that were tested at CPSC’s laboratory would pose a risk of substantial illness to children from mouthing. However, if the condition of a vinyl bib deteriorates to the point that a baby could pull or bite off and swallow a piece of vinyl containing lead, then the amounts of lead consumed could approach levels of concern.
CPSC staff therefore advises parents and caregivers to stop using vinyl bibs in such condition. In the CPSC staff’s view, this step could effectively prevent any significant risk of exposure to lead from these products. This precaution would also protect infants from the risk of choking on loose pieces of vinyl.
Ms. Furer’s take on the portion of the CPSC statement claiming that amounts of lead consumed could approach levels of concern was that “no amount of lead is acceptable for infants and children because it’s cumulative.
As it turns out, the Center for Environmental Health reported that CPSC had released a scientifically unsupported statement that may confuse parents about these risks, stating above that the bibs are only a risk if they “are worn or have deteriorated.” In fact, since infants and young children often chew and suck on their baby bibs, they are highly at risk of harmful lead exposures even from new bibs that repeated tests by three labs have found to have high lead levels.
This is the same CPSC who covered up their own test results showing high lead levels in the lunchboxes, and then changed their test method to show artificially lower levels of lead. In that case, CPSC also rejected the findings from independent test results showing high lead levels, while refusing to make public their test data.
Michael Green, Executive Director of CEH stated that “the public cannot have any confidence in an agency that repeatedly minimizes clear and present threats to our children’s health. Americans deserve protection from unsafe products, but CPSC seems more interested in protecting industry than our children.” My, my that sounds familiar doesn’t it?
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Marilyn Furer is to be commended for being well-informed and savy enough to deal with Wal-Marts and federal agencies. Shame on CPSC.
Additionally, I wonder if the fault does not lie with the designers or practical engineers (what is their career designation?} of these products. Is it possible they don’t know the dangers of lead? And other harmful substances? Maybe they don’t. Is there a course of study in their education that missing? Like “Materials and Contraband Materials. The Harm, The danger.” I wonder about this because it doesn’t seem logically right for a designer to knowingly use a dangerous binder, say, that is known to be a health hazard. What do they teach in colllege and technical schools anyway?
It’s all about money. If the lead makes them more money, then lead it is. Corporations don’t have morals or souls, the ol’ mighty dollar is their God.
Stan, lead is used as a vinyl stabilizing additive for rigidity and color retention. As such, lead is one of the last items added in the manufacturing process. Thus, the lead is very near the surface. Why manufacturers use it is probably because it is cheap, cheap, cheap and does a good job for which it was designed.
The biggest immorality lies with the corporations themselves. In addition to withholding information, some industries, including lead and vinyl, have reassured the public that their products are benign by controlling research and manipulating science.
Throughout much of the twentieth century, most scientific studies of the health effects of toxic substances have been done by researchers in the employ of industry or in universities with financial ties to members of that industry. At times their results were subject to review by industry; if the results indicated a problem, the information was suppressed.
A recent study of corporate funding of academic research revealed that “more than half of the university scientists who received gifts from drug or biotechnology companies admitted that the donor expected to exert influence over their work.
So, it’s cheap, it works and corporations are only concerned about profit. That’s why it’s still here and until it costs them more to keep lead in their products, they will continue to do it. It’s all about the money.
More Mickey Finn products from China? Was defective merchandise ever such a big problem when made in the U.S.A.? Americans trusted brand names. However, however, however, jobs and companies and whole plants were outsourced abroad. And American brand-name products were even farmed out to other, foreign companies overseas and in Mexico. Cheap labor and cheap supplies = bonus big bucks! So now there’s still “American companies” //at Hq office only or maybe just a P.O. box// here at home. Whoa! The problem is they cannot outsource Quality Control. And whoa again! Now their hand is caught in the fortune cookies jar!
How can anyone sitting at a desk even via computer in a stateside office micromanage quality control of their brand-name products made somewhere out in the void? What we are learning about fuckups in toxic-tainted products made in China for the American market in the last couple of weeks is only the rumble of an avalanche of woe-is-me troubles.
It just may turn out that the extra big bucks earned by outsourcing by these companies may end up covering the loss of sales and perhaps the upcoming huge costs of lawsuits and lawyers. Of course, their brand name is now zip. Trust is now zip. Severs them right!
And maybe someone who starts say, a toy company with plants in the U.S. and with U.S. workers, may find instant success. That opportunity is now. Just mark your products: Made in the U.S.A.
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Great comment Stan. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
It will be interesting to see if these parents start testing their kids for lead because lead is so prevalent in our environment today (not just on toys) that they will perhaps start finding out that our kids are full of not only lead, but all kinds of heavy metals and toxins.
Then who do you sue? The U.S. government? Bush?
Get a rope…let’s hang em all.
It should be mandatory for the Chinese workers who made the scout medals and the American company employees who supplied the scouts with lead-tainted badges to recite the following each morning before work //translated, of course//…
Boy Scouts of America (BSA)
A Scout is:
1. trustworthy,
2. loyal,
3. helpful,
4. friendly,
5. courteous,
6. kind,
7. obedient,
8. cheerful,
9. thrifty,
10. brave,
11. clean, and
12. reverent.
Girl Scouts of the USA
I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do,
and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout
— Wikipedia
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Hey Stan, I don’t think it is the Chinese workers per se, but the corporate conglomerate’s higher-ups that are abusing the country’s lack of regulations. I think the workers are just trying to put food on their table, so their children don’t die that day. Plus, the workers may not even know that there is lead in the paint. They themselves could be getting lead poisoning without knowing it.
I like the quotes though, it is a shame that even we, Americans, can’t even follow them.
Yeah, Cerebral, yeah…those big fat cats…You’re right. Hey, I lasted one week in the Boy Scouts. The first time I went, at the first meeting, all the regular scouts had water pistols and I got squirted to death. So for the second week I bought a plastic water pistol and I thought I’d outsquirt them. Well, I got caught and kicked out! I didn’t even have time to learn the Pledge or the Scout’s Law until today…
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JC Penney joins the Chinese-Toy-Recall club of Chinese-made toys tainted with lead. Check out your local news or local online newspaper. Or click on the two news articles below:
More than 90,000 children’s products, most imported by J.C. Penney Co. Inc., were recalled Thursday for containing dangerous levels of lead, a government safety group announced.
http://www.examiner.com/a-984786~J_C__Penney__others_recall_toys_for_lead_contamination.html
The 90,700 lead-contaminated toys recalled Thursday include :
http://www.examiner.com/a-984769~Lead_Tainted_Toys_Recalled.html
Talk about Trojan wooden horses! Are they trying to get us? It almost makes you paranoid. I said it once and I’ll say it again. This a open-window //at least for now for awhile // opportunity for some of our homeboys to band together, form a company, and market safe Made-in-U.S.A. toys. An instant overnight success. Parents would not mind paying bigger bucks for safe toys for their tots.
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The one sure way to cope with unsafe toys in America would be to pack up and move to China. Then your kids won’t be playing in America with unsafe toys. You’ll be in China where no one checks the toys. They don’t seem interested in Quality control; just Quantity control. Unsafe? Who’s going to know over there?
Made in U.S.A. Toys are in Demand. Small companies are selling their manuf toys from Vermont Wooden Toys in Vermont to Arrowcopter, Inc. in California.
These small company success stories are in the news. Recall after recall after recall of toys made in China due to lead-based paint mostly and other defects have urged parents to look elsewhere for safer toys. And with the label “Made in USA.”
However their small number and their small size of these toy makers in the U.S., they are struggling to meet order demands. Online sales are up fivefold. Each new Chinese toy recall spurs their business. If you looking for a job, you might check out the small toy companies in your area as many are hiring right now. And as I have said early, this is a great time to start your own toy company, manufacturing or selling toys with the label: “Made in USA.”
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AB1108 was signed by our governor into Calif state law last Sunday and will take effect on January 1, 2009. Bill AB1108 prohibits the use of phthalates, a softener for various plastic products. Among them, for children’s plastic toys and baby teething rings. The chemical has been shown to cause hormonal damage in young children and up the chances of serious illnesses later in life. And you thought lead-tainted paint on toys from China was bad enough. Other states are expected to follow California’s lead and Senator Dianne Feinstein may get a National law ban proposal going soon. Suggestion: Do your parents or grandparents have any of their old toys squirreled away in their attic or basement? The wooden kind. They may be safer than the toys you buy today. I don’t know, but you might check it out.
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