The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 is currently being reconsidered after a House sub-committee last week approved a proposal that would lessen the stringent requirements for expensive testing for lead and phthalates in products that might be used by children. By most accounts, the proposal is a sensible revision of a law that was in large part an overreaction to a 2007 scare engendered by excess levels of lead in toys imported from China. “I don’t think anyone involved in writing this act in 2008 had any idea what the ramifications would be,” says ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross, noting the costly and inefficient testing of “almost anything that a child might even see” that has resulted from the act.
The proposed bill would require chemical limitations only on toy parts that a child might actually come in contact with. It would also delay the tighter limits of lead contents that the 2008 act stipulated, and restrict postings to the CPSC website that tracks consumer complaints. ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan supports the more sensible standards of the new proposal, which incorporates a more science-based approach than the current testing standards that have disproportionally encumbered smaller toymakers, driving many out of business altogether.
“Only activists and 'consumer advocates' who are pushing a political agenda in the guise of children’s health concerns are upset about revising this misguided and counterproductive law,” Dr. Ross observes.
