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Toying With Safety Of Children Shows Need For New Agency Boss

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 9, 2007

Parents and grandparents, ask yourself this question the next time you're standing in the toy aisle holding the latest Chinese import on your child's wish list: Do I feel lucky?

This year more than 21 million toys made in China were recalled for safety hazards, mostly lead contamination.

This week 4.2 million sets of Aqua Dots, the little plastic-like beads that children can arrange into pictures or patterns, are being pulled off store shelves. The beads contain a chemical that metabolizes into the drug GHB - the "date rape" drug that puts its victims into a coma.

Turns out the company manufacturing the candy-colored beads substituted a cheaper chemical for the one required by the manufacturer, and the dangerous switch-a-roo wasn't detected until children in Australia and the United States slipped into comas after swallowing them.

It wasn't the toy manufacturer that reported the violation. Neither was it the fumbling Consumer Product Safety Commission. Rather, it was an Australian doctor determined to find out what befell a young boy.

Parents are rightfully outraged and fearful about this year's series of fast and furious toy recalls. Yet who will speak for them?

Clearly, it's not Nancy Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission who's busy resisting efforts to beef up her agency's inspection programs.

Now - just weeks away from the start of the holiday shopping season - it's reported that Nord is a frequent flier on the toy industry's dime.

Nord insists she's done nothing wrong in accepting free travel, something she calls a long-standing practice at the agency. If that's so, the precedent must change.

Still, her opposition to hiring more staff is troubling, given the number of dangerous products slipping through and causing harm. Perhaps there's a solution that doesn't require more staff, but rather, a reorganization of existing employees. But that's not her argument.

Nord wants to preserve the status quo, arguing that giving the government a greater ability to inspect and recall products could drive safety problems farther underground. Her argument suggests the industry would rather hide dangerous products than face the cost of coming clean.

Experience tells us that the toy industry is incapable of policing itself. It's already slow to recall toys tainted with lead and other potentially deadly chemicals, and it seems oblivious to the practices of Chinese manufacturing partners who use cheap, dangerous compounds to keep profits high.

Families need a consumer advocate who gets as angry as parents do at the thought that a benign plaything can poison a child. The Consumer Product Safety Commission needs a leader who isn't carrying water for toy makers as they send a valet for her suitcase.

It's time for Nord to go and for Congress to ensure the agency once again protects consumers.

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