Poison Toys or Total Recall?

[UpInArms]

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) was created in 1972 to protect consumers against faulty products and laboratories were set up to test products prior to their reaching the shelves to prevent the citizens (and consumers) from unsafe products. We now have a rear-window approach in this department – that of products being recalled long after they have reached the marketplace and many times after complete consumption (in the case of foodstuffs). Under the current administration, the CPSC has had drastic budget reductions and staffing cuts, which together with its outdated and obsolete laboratories, rarely even oversee the complete removal of dangerous items from the shelves of the nation’s retailers.

I don’t know of a centralized database for all of the toys and products that have been recalled for safety issues in the past three years, but if one does exist, it will certainly show a trend – that of Chinese manufacturing deadly toys and the importation of these toys into our country and more unsafe consumer goods and products lining the shelves. In 1997, only 5 percent of all toys manufactured came from China, by 2007 that number had swelled to nearly 20 percent.

The laws that regulate the CPSC state that they can only mandate safety standards after voluntary measures have failed, but Chinese officials and their factory owners have said that they do not feel compelled to meet the voluntary standards set by our nation. They have been paraphrased as saying “voluntary means you do not have to follow” the standards.

This leaves the American consumer with hard choices. Trust in our governmental agencies has yielded a toxic mess upon the shelves of storekeepers, a trust that has been violated and is now nonexistent. The burden has fallen to the states’ Attorneys General to pursue violations, which makes this nation a patchwork of knowledge – leaving many with large gaps of information with which to make decisions.

We, as consumers and citizens, need to have our trust restored by our elected representatives taking the initiative to actually do their jobs – to serve their constituents and to cease to reward the corporate lobbyists.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. One solution:

don't buy anything made in China. Hard to do anymore.

Another solution: buy stuff made or, in the case of food, produced by folks you know. Get stuff from mom and pop stores.

Finally, grow your own food.

[Theres-a]

2. K & R

[54anickel]

3. Nice piece UIA! Oh the tales I could tell of getting UL and CE certified parts

from our Asian friends for some our products. "We get part to pass - no problem. You get sticker. wink-wink;nudge-nudge". :eyes:

Of course, you as a consumer would never directly buy our products, they were yet another outsourced part that went into some big unnamed manufacturers piece of medical equipment that might be used on you someday. So where does the ultimate responsibility, accountability, liability really lie? The big unnamed conglomerate? My little "second source" computer company? The Asian parts manufacturer who learned how to play the certs game? Or the expansive tax-funder bureaucracy that created the elaborate, expensive, easily circumvented certification process to begin with? And people wonder why I've become so bitter toward our "Corporate America Gov't". Sheesh.
Been there, done that, won't go back. There's an entire industry that just doesn't take this safety/certification stuff seriously - it's just another process to circumvent, fee to pay, motion to go through, etc, etc. A minor obstacle to overcome in the time to market track. The Chinese aren't the only ones who don't take this stuff seriously....

[UpInArms]

4. thanks 54anickel!

I just don't know how we even have a snowball's chance on taking our country back from the edge of this abyss.

I guess it won't be in my lifetime - I just wish I were not leaving such a freakin' mess for my kid and his future children.

:(