Toy Safety

Now that we have finally reached election day and we all survived a long campaign. Lets take a moment and congratulate President George W. Bush for one of his greatest accomplishments (it's a short list).

In August, George W. signed into law the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. This law bans the use of lead and phthalate plasticisers.

Wait a minute... August of 2008??? Are you kidding me? It wasn't illegal to use lead in toys until 2008 when we have known about the dangers since the 70's. How could it have been technically legal to sell those toys for all that time? We have got to move quicker. It took an entire generation to go from recognizing the problem to finding a solution.

Most of the blame has been placed on China. It is true that China is manufacturing toys that are not safe, but shouldn't the United States Government accept some of the blame for not having the proper enforcement capabilities.

There were 45 million playthings recalled in 2007 for toxic levels of lead. Let's hope this new law will solve the problem and keep the store shelves free of hazardous toys.