I was invited by a Twitter follower, to share my opinion on the CPSIA (The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act). In the midst of this struggling economy, it is problematic that costly accountability protocols are being imposed on companies alreading providing certified organic and otherwise safe products.
The Handmade Toy Alliance has a legitimate concern. Their proposed solution to direct testing at the raw material stage of manufacturing makes a lot of sense, especially with the global exchange of materials and products that is simply how business is done today. For example, my Canadian Safeway brand dill pickles are grown in India if you read the fine print.
But I would like to share another perspective...
Having spent a good deal of time and energy researching lead’s sources and lead’s damaging effects, I fear that the emphasis on toys and children’s products is putting a spotlight on one issue at the expense of another. This is the tip of iceberg, and it is the massive piece that we don’t see that needs our focus. This is the fact that the lead adults have accumulated over their lifetine impacts the health - in particular the brain, of the children they bring into this world. Bare with me on this, because I do realize that children grown up to be adults.
My interest is in breaking the cycle of learning disabilities and ADHD, behavior and lowered IQ that has impacted several generations now. It is turning schools on their heads, and changing the face of society.
The lead in toys and in painted cribs, etc. is a major and urgent concern. But is still pales by comparison to the magnitude of the need to protect and inform our next generation of childbearing adults, and the way to do that is through education. Lead is in places that the government can never regulate or take responsibility for. That fact simply will not change.
Our future as a society will be defined by our ability intervene in the creation of another generation of brain-injured children. Therefore, as I see it, it is about mechanisms for empowering individuals to take personal responsibility for what they allow themselves to be exposed to – to do the work of finding out, and following through. I don’t see Congress empowering the little guy any time soon. So I think I am on a bit of a different trajectory than those who have issue with the CPSIA.
Think about this scenario… the act changes and all US toys, products and foods are certified lead-free. There is now no need to know about lead if there is no lead in the things we buy.
So now imagine a family travels abroad and buys jewelry, a toy, candy, ceramic wear, cosmetics, etc. and brings the items back to the States or Canada. How does government regulation protect that family? And the families that recieve these items as gifts? And what do we do about the antiques in our houses, the lead pipes under driveways, the lead that we send airborne with our vacuum cleaners and our feather dusters? The lead that was dispersed via fuel and paint decades ago is all around us. It didn’t go anywhere.
There is so much we can do to protect ourselves that no legislation or acts passed by congress can accomplish. My worry is an act, such as the CPSIA will lull us back into the complacency that got us here in the first place - the complacency that I am working hard to change.
LEAD BABIES
Breaking the cycle of learning disabilities, declining IQ, ADHD, behavior problems, and autism
Authors: Joanna Cerazy M.Ed. and Sandra Cottingham Ph.D
Publisher: Kunati Inc (USA & Canada) 1-866-356 2442
Distribution: Independent Publishers Group (IPG)
ISBN: 978-1-60164-192-2
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I agree that education of adults is key and that the nannying CPSIA provides will result in complacency and help adults feel that awareness of their environment is not necessary. I'm less concerned about Americans taking trips abroad than I am about immigrants who come here to make a better life. There are many cases where immigrants from other countries have used leaden vessels or home remedies, cosmetics, and candies from their home countries that are laced with lead, and have unknowingly poisoned themselves or their children. Educating these parents about lead is vital if we are to empower them and their children to participate in our great melting pot.
ReplyDeleteI would like to add to your insights that in addition to having that effect, one of CPSIA's most pernicious effects is that it requires resources to be wasted on unnecessary and duplicative testing. These are resources that could be spent on, say, lead paint abatement in housing, to much greater effect. Honestly I think many businesses would much prefer to pay into a lead abatement pool than to have CPSIA's onerous and open-ended testing requirements on products that are already made of lead-free materials. Instead, we get laws like CPSIA that make things minutely more safe at a cost of literally billions of lost dollars.
Thank you for your comments with regards to lead. There is still so much we can do to keep this nasty metal out of our lives.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me CPSIA, although not perfect, at least helps bring these issues to the forefront. I'm not sure that without it we would have the ability to remove lead (and many other potential damaging susbtances) from children's toys, as the industry seemed not to take the issue seriously beforehand.
Thanks again and let's find ways to remove all of these nasty substances from being ingested by anyone adult or child.