Comments on: CPSIA: “We are sorry to report…”

By: Trojan Horse “Food Safety” Law | OpenMarket.org

Trojan Horse “Food Safety” Law | OpenMarket.org — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:27:06 +0000

[…] is the 2007 child-safety law, the CPSIA, which was based on junk science. It shut down countless thrift stores and entire industries, resulting in children’s books being thrown out and pulled from library […]

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:00:53 +0000

This story hits home for us. We too, had to close the doors on our children’s resale store. We officially closed on January 31, 2009 to ensure our inventory was liquidated prior to the enactment of the CPSIA on February 10. We owned a franchised resale store, Children’s Orchard. We consulted with legal counsel and were advised that closing up shop was the only “safe” way to do things. There is no way we wanted to take a chance that one of the items in our store exceeded the new law limits, a child gets hurts, we get sued, or worse. We were diligent about checking the recall list, not accepting items that were not well made and in excellent condition, but that was not enough to protect us from the CPSIA. We are parents as well, and who would raise our children while we were engaging in a legal battle, in jail, or similar. The law forced us to close, and though the franchisor is still in business, we could not be part of it. We are not getting any support from the franchisor, they believe our decision to close was absurd and without basis…the law is clear however, and the risk was far to great for us.

By: vyn

vyn — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:27:11 +0000

the problem is that the point wasn’t to ‘save’ our kids from deadly chemicals, but to get all that second-hand market items out of the way so we are forced to buy newly-printed versions of the books. the books aren’t going to be unavailable, we’ll just have to buy new ones at exorbitantly higher prices since the supply will all-of-a-sudden be so low in relation to demand.

By: An Explosion of Litigation | OpenMarket.org

An Explosion of Litigation | OpenMarket.org — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:36:12 +0000

[…] in tempering the excesses of the Consumer Product Safety Improvements Act, which has put shut down thrift stores and entire industries, and gives state attorney generals and their trial lawyer allies broad new […]

By: William Nuesslein

William Nuesslein — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:15:06 +0000

The hazard of lead has been promoted for decades. Perhaps the poor perfomance of inter-city schools resulted from lead poisoning from paint, an idea promoted by Geraldo Rivera. There has been a suggested two or three point IQ depression from lead, but there is a 15 to 20 IQ deficieit in inner-city schools. Further there has been no boost in school performance after lead was removed from gasoline and interial paint.

Policy has been for many years that whatever level of lead is in the blood of children, said level must be reduced even at great cost. Barbar Boxer and Henry Waxman are twits. They do not have a habit of testing their beliefs, almost nobody does so.

As long as the lead mythology is universally held, the arguement that so much is lost in baning books and interfering with home based businesses will be ineffective. These costs do not hold a candle to the belief, a completely fase belief, that we would eliminate the academic gap in inner-city school performance.

By: BG

BG — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:15:17 +0000

This is the link to their Washington DC office.
http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/
http://www.ala.org/
If they were crowing about this new law they took it off the web (unlike USPIRG) yet there are some interesting documents re:CPSIA.

By: DeputyHeadmistress

DeputyHeadmistress — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:58:47 +0000

It also demonstrates the folly of supporting a bill or a position because the folks you generally agree with politically (or think you do) are in favor of it.

Where can I found out more about the ALA’s support?

By: BG

BG — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:00:15 +0000

DeputyHeadmistress, Yes, I was surprised too but now I can’t resist: They were for it before they were against it. They may have been concerned about the toys in children’s sections and puppets used at story hour and not thinking about the books themselves. I don’t know.

This shows the danger of being in favor (or not) of something before reading the final version of a policy or thinking things through to their logical end. I, also, am in favor of reducing lead exposure, as are most parents I know, but to support alchemy, etc. seems a bit overboard. It may be time (past time) to have a Read the Bills bill introduced in congress. There are folks working on this at downsizedc.org (they have two posts about CPSIA if you search their site)

By: DeputyHeadmistress

DeputyHeadmistress — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:08:07 +0000

BG, the American Library Association SUPPORTED the bill last year? Oh, my! No wonder they are keeping a stupidly low profile on this, and just keep trusting Waxman et al instead of the people who actually oppose the bill and want it reformed. Hoist by their own petard.

By: Happymom4

Happymom4 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:34:10 +0000

Also read the recent Washington Post piece about the many, many children who died in car seats in the heat . . . . . and how there were some bills in place to try to get a safety system built into the vehicles to help prevent that which was scrapped. Read all 5 pages of it if you can–some of the hardest, most gut-wrenching reading you could do–and then wonder “WHY” CPSIA and not that?!