Toxic Trade Exposes More and More Americans To Deadly Products, Report Says

WASHINGTON – More and more American consumers are at risk from products that are not produced in America or subject to American safety standards, according to a new report released today by the Campaign for America’s Future. The report calls for an increase in the authority and budget of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a move that its commissioner Nancy Nord opposes.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., joined Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage and senior fellow David Sirota on a conference call with reporters today to release the report, calling for Nord’s resignation.

Highlighting the urgency of the problem, dangerous levels of lead have been found in costumes and candy buckets meant for kids to use on Halloween. Lead has been banned from toys for 30 years in the U.S., but more than 20 million toys manufactured in China have recently been recalled for unsafe levels of lead.

The report details the basic reality that puts children at risk. World imports have increased by 338 percent since 1974, with imports from China alone increasing nearly 3,900 percent since 1985. Yet the budget and staff of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the government agency responsible for monitoring consumer goods in the U.S., is less than half the level it was when it started in 1974. Inspection has been slashed even as the need for it has multiplied.

Sen. Brown said Congress is weighing the most significant consumer-safety legislation in a generation, for the reasons outlined in the Campaign for America’s Future report. Sen. Brown said we must protect the safety and health of our children and our families first.

“Our nation’s haphazard trade policy allows contaminated food and toys onto our shelves and into our homes,” said Sen. Brown. “Until we give CPSC the authority to enforce safety standards, we won’t be able to prevent contaminated products from ending up in our homes. This administration’s apathy for policies that protect our families is at best shameful, at worst, potentially deadly.”

Rep. DeLauro said legislation in Congress will face hurdles with President Bush over the direction of the CPSC, especially with the Bush Administration’s top consumer product safety official asking Congress to reject legislation intended to strengthen the agency.

“You have producers … asking for increased authorities and standards and the head of the agency says they are not needed,” said Rep. DeLauro on the call. “This is a person who should not be heading up this, even in an acting position. She should go.”

Borosage said the Campaign for America’s Future is stepping up its efforts to get Americans involved in demanding greater protection.

“Conservative governments have handcuffed the cop on the corporate beat,” said Borosage. “This isn’t an accident. It isn’t an oversight. Republican presidents and conservative legislators have campaigned against regulation for decades. And in office, they have cut regulatory budgets and staff, curbed the powers of their agencies and stocked them full of representatives from the industries they are supposed to regulate.”

In a poll by Democracy Corps released today by the Campaign for America’s Future, voters said their greatest concern about China by far was that “lack of safety regulations make Chinese products cheap but also unsafe for American consumers.”

In an illustration of Borosage’s point, Prof. Jeffrey Weidenhammer at Ashland University in Ohio found dangerous amounts of lead in some Halloween toys. One toy in focus is called “Ugly Teeth.” The fake plastic teeth have 100 times allowable levels of lead in the paint on them. The teeth are just one of dozens of Halloween toys Prof. Weidenhammer and his team tested, but they say the plastic teeth are of greatest concern, because lead enters a system fastest when ingested.

Just this past Thursday, the CPSC issued a recall of Halloween pails that children might use to carry their treats in, based partly on tests the professor and his lab had done. They also found high levels in a Frankenstein cup and white skull bucket, but those two items weren't recalled for reasons that are not known.

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**NOTE: To obtain an electronic copy of the Campaign for America’s Future’s report on Toxic Trade and polling results, please visit www.ourfuture.org [1]. **

SOME RECALLED HALLOWEEN TOYS

—142,000 purple Halloween pails with witch decorations by Family Dollar Stores of Charlotte, N.C. (Oct. 25, 2007) for lead content.
[http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08051.html]

—55,000 skull pails filled with Halloween candy mix by R.L. Albert & Son of Greenwich, Conn. (Oct. 17, 2007) for lead content.
[http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08033.html]

—120,000 "Creepy Cape" Halloween costumes by TONY Development & Manufacturing (USA) of Montclair, N.J. (Oct. 13, 2006) for flammability.
[http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07021.html]

SOME RECENTLY RECALLED TOYS

—49,000 Disney™ Deluxe Winnie-the-Pooh 23-piece play sets by J.C. Penney (Oct. 11, 2007) for lead content.
[http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08022.html]

—675,000 Barbie accessory toys by Mattel Inc. (Sept. 4, 2007) for lead content.
[http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07301.html]

—97,000 Mr. Potato Head "Make a Monster Pumpkin" and Mr. Potato Head "Make a Fireman Pumpkin" and Mrs. Potato Head "Make a Diva Pumpkin" by Paper Magic Group Inc., of Scranton, Pa. (Oct. 24, 2006) for choking risks.
[http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07013.html]