Who among us doesn’t care about children’s safety? Apparently some of the same government watchdogs charged with enforcing those same safety regulations. Sweeping legislation banning toys containing phthalates, set to go into effect February 10, 2009, contained a loophole that allowed some tainted toys to remain on the shelves of your neighborhood toy store. Phthalates are toxic chemicals used by manufacturers to soften plastics. They are commonly found in bath toys, books, teethers, bibs, dolls and flexible plastic figures.
Fortunately, a federal judge recently ruled that federal safety regulators must remove all toys containing toxic manufacturing chemicals from shelves in order to comply with the impending ban. Unbelievably our own Consumer Protection Safety Commission argued that the ban did not apply to toys made before the date the ban goes into effect nationwide.
Who is the CPSC protecting? Sounds like they were siding with the Toy manufacturers who claimed it would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars to remove all affected toys from store shelves. Is someone putting financial gain over concern for our children’s safety? Sounds like it to me. I think the CPSC needs to step back and look at the big picture and what they are charged to do: PROTECT OUR KIDS. As Judge Gardephe ruled, to allow the loophole to continue would in effect undermine the goal of the very law meant to protect children.
Richard J. Arsenault, 2011
