You gave away the store when you said “I’m not against keeping lead out of toys”. Do you really want bicycles to be outlawed because of some brass in their air valves?

We are both against hazardous toys. But a bicycle is a bicycle and not a lead hazard. Nice people like you are killing us with your childish acceptance of scare mongering from the lead nuts. And we have that beautiful woman and scientific twit, Jenny McCarthy, fighting vaccines.

CPSIA is wrong not because it ruins your business, but because it is scientifically moronic. I take your word that lead is not in the materials that you use. But a lead nut would say that it could be some day.

We have to, as a culture, reign in the lead, PCB, anti-nuke, anti-vaccines nuts.

The lead testing alone is $50 per component. My giraffes have 4-5 components per item. This would add an additional $180-$225 to each giraffe I sell… I sell them for about $12-$18 (depending on the fabric). (Nevermind the fact that none of the materials I use even have a risk for lead)

To add insult to injury, I am required by CPSIA to test my items for phthalates because it is an item intended to go into the mouth of a child under 3. Phthalates are a compound added to plastics to make them soft. However, the giraffes are entirely made of 100% cotton fabric, plant-basted fiber filling, and cotton thread. There are absolutely no phthalates in any of the items I use to make the giraffes. I still have to test at a cost of about $400 per component. Again, 4-5 components per giraffe, and the cost is just overwhelming.

I’m not against keeping lead out of toys. However, I am against having to spend money testing for something that is scientifically been proven not there. Congress needs to step up and make some common sense changes to the law. The damage this law if kept as-is will do to our economy and to my family specifically is incredible.

Thank you for using this forum to highlight the huge problem that is the CPSIA.

One would predict that Mrs. Murray, being a sentient creature, would say that the valve is in side the tire stem and can not possibly injure the child. More likely she would ignore the evidence that CPSIA is bad law. She had good intention when she promoted the law, and intention would prevail in her case.

Let’s bring a guy so the argument is not about the way women think. Mr. Reid, the senator from Nevada, crows about his killing Yucca Mountain. Obviously he has no idea whatsoever about the Science of Yucca Mountain, which Science was settled thirty years ago according to President Carter. Activists kept the project in court with fears of what happens 100,000 years from now.

For Republicans, remember the Terry Schiavo matter. And Elisabeth Dole is actually proud of getting airbags in cars.

Perhaps some large toy makers will be advantaged by CPSIA, but it would only be trivially. We have had decades of misguided code about lead in houses. And don’t forget the hideously stupid Delaney amendment.

And Americans want to tell others how to live!

No, the CPSIA requires that the components be tested for each product or pattern separately. So if you make one product of three components, you have to do three component tests. If you make three products out of those same three components, you have to do nine component tests. If each of your three products has three different patterns (sizes, colors, etc), then you’d have to do 27 component tests, etc. Actually I think it’s even more complicated than this.

BTW, I’m not the same Greg as Greg Dwyer. I meant to sign my posts with GregS but made a typo.

I think that they’re speaking the truth and that one of the unstated goals of this law is to force a consolidation of the production of children’s products into the hands of a few large companies. From the regulatory standpoint it makes a certain kind of sense – if you want to tightly regulate the safety of children’s products, it’s a lot easier to do if there are only a few companies to regulate. So my forecast is that Congress will attempt to stonewall on any changes to the CPSIA until the small companies have all left the market. Then, and only then, once the market has been consolidated, will they start to amend the law to remove some of the more ridiculous aspects of it and to reduce the compliance costs on the big companies that are now in possession of the market.

I’m with Greg Dwyer. Who benefits from this legislation. We already know that trial lawyers stand to make millions, but, who else is riding this gravy train? I would hazard a guess that companies like Fisher Price, Gerber, Graco and a multitude of others stand to benefit. Think about it. The second-hand market for kids toys, clothing and furnishings stands to be wiped out. What would happen to GM, Chrysler and Ford if all of the sudden any vehicle more than four years old went away?

When I was a kid, I used to fish a lot. I had these lead weights called split shot that were crimped on to the fishing line. On more than one occasion, due to a lack of pliers, I used my teeth to secure these weights to the line. My health never suffered. Hell, I even played around with Mercury from a busted barometer.