by Pauline M. Campos
October 04, 2008

It’s about time!

That’s really all I can say about the new law that was recently signed by the President that will lead to expanded safety measures concerning the seemingly harmless toys and other manufactured goods that we place in our little ones’ hands.

I’m talking about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which, in a nutshell, is going to result in tough new standards for lead, phthalates, and other chemicals in products and more ways to keep our kids safe in the event of a recall.

As summarized in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Health Tip of the Day, the new law will:

1. Give the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the federal agency charged with protecting the public from the risk of injuries associated with consumer products, new resources to ensure safe products.
2. Require lead levels to eventually be reduced to 100 parts per million.
3. Call on foreign manufacturers to adhere to U.S. standards for toy safety.
4. Ban selling kids’ toys and products that contain more than 0.1 percent of certain phthalates, which are chemicals used to make vinyl soft and flexible.
5. Create an easily searchable database of consumer complaints about a product’s safety.
6. Require manufacturers to label products with tracking information so people can easily find out if the product they own has been recalled.
7. Allow state attorneys general to pull dangerous products from store shelves.
8. Impose large fines for safety violations.

And while I agree that this is a step in the right direction, I’m more than a bit shocked to learn that stores can continue to sell the lead-based, phthalate-filled toys and teethers currently on their shelves until the new law officially goes into effect—a full 180 days after the President signed it into law!

So what’s a concerned parent supposed to do until then? Well, now that I am high up on my soapbox, it’s time for parents to continue doing what we are good at doing: Bucking the system and demanding what is best for our kids and researching and educating ourselves about the safety of the toys our children are playing with. How else would this law have made its way into the President’s hands, had it not been for parents who wanted better, safer options for their kids?

I don’t mean to sound like I’m a conspiracy-theorist, because that is far from the case, but I am realistic. And I know, from experience, that just because something is manufactured and sold for use in the U.S., or even in my home state of Michigan, its placement on store shelves doesn’t automatically make it safe. Which leads me to wonder: Are there other Federal or State mandates regulating children’s products?

Currently, the CSPC has no legal authority to test children’s products before they are sold. And since recalls are largely voluntary, they rarely happen unless a company alerts the CSPC of a problem. State by state, though, the news is a bit more encouraging as several have enacted laws regulating toxic chemicals in toys and other products, including California, Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois. States currently considering laws to regulate chemicals in children’s toys and other products include Maryland, Connecticut, Maine, and New York.

And while that’s encouraging, it’s not nearly enough. Which takes me back to my original point of parents taking on the responsibility and not relying on our government to keep our kids safe.

Here are a few tips from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to help parents keep dangerous items out of their children’s hands:

• Always return registration cards that accompany toys and other children’s products, so the manufacturer can notify you if the product is recalled.

• Read labels and pay attention to them: Make sure toys are age-safe and appropriate.

• Do your homework and find out where a product came from before bringing it home. Unsafe levels of lead, for example, are common in pottery found in Mexico, Latin America, and Asia.

• When buying art supplies, including crayons and paints, look for the ATSM D-4236 designation on the package.

(And just for the record, I’m throwing away my daughter’s rubber ducky as soon as I finish reviewing this article.)