For people with children?

Question

Who do we blame for the allowance of lead base paint toys into the country? Its obvious that those whom are entrusted to take care of the safety of our children have no concerns over the public health of our children. I know the govt doesnt care ne thing about us at all, but where are all the watch dog groups that are/were children safety advocates? The fda or who ever else was supposed to be doing the job wasnt doing the job. It pisses me off that we have spent billions on these toys throughout the years and this is all we get. We need to boycott these corporations and file a massive lawsuit against all those involved from the companies who made the toys to the ones who allowed them into the country, for I know we all have or have had these toys in our homes. Let me know your opinions. Please serious answers for we have put our kids safety in jeopardy. I am a new parent so to some extent I blame myself for not doing my research however someone needs to pay for putting our kids at risk

Maggie I hear you, however how long has this been going on? Barbie has been around for a longggggggggggg time whose to say that some of the elder generations that were exposed to these toys that got some form of cancer during their life time could be traced back to these toys? No, I do not have the answer all I know is that my children have been playing and exposed to these toys and im supposed to sit back and say well it may take a long time for my kids to have a reaction f that. I really dont care how much it would cost to get the problem figured out it just needs to happen. We're exposing our children, and for some folks that dont have kids and have dogs, dog food being recalled I mean what. Someone needs to do a far superior job when it comes to the safety of our children, pets, and our homes we've allowed all these poisons into our everyday lives and thats acceptable. HELL NAW. All im saying is someone needs to feel the wrath for this one, and not our children, and pets.

Answer 1

I was shocked and outraged when I found out about all the lead recalls. We had 2 toys recalled that were birthday gifts for my dd. She doesn't understand why the toys had to "go away". How do explain something like that?

We have boycotted everything made in China. It's hard, and a little more expensive, but I don't care. I know the toys and clothes I'm buying are safe.

Keep in mind that a few years ago, Crayola Crayons had a lead recall. We don't use Crayola for anything.
Instead, we use Stockmar Beeswax Block Crayons
http://www.blueladybug.com/block_crayons_large.html

Here are some links I found while shopping for safe toys.

http://www.toysmadeinamerica.com/
http://www.atoygarden.com/index.cfm
http://www.sanderstoys.com/
http://www.donedwardstoyworks.com/
http://www.willowtoys.com/
http://www.unclegoose.com/Who.html
http://www.blueladybug.com/about.html

We also have a few "Melissa and Doug" toys, but these are now also made in China. They started out in the U.S. as a "mom and pop" kind of company.

Answer 2

Exactly. I totally agree with everything you said, and would add only this...
What parent has the time to get on those endless lists of toys and figure out which one their kids have and which ones they dont?
Basically, you end up just throwing out all the little toys and only checking the big ones.
Who wants to take a chance on allowing their kids to chew on or play with toys that have lead in them? How scary!
Children exposed to lead before age six show a high risk of neurological abnormalities....aka... mental retardation.
I know this because we have the largest lead smelting factory in the world here in Herculaeum, Missouri, called Doe Run Lead Smelters, and our whole town is an EPA clean-up site. You want a good laugh?.....Look us up on the internet. It has been a ten year fight to get people to do the right thing here.....and this is our OWN country....not China.

Answer 3

seeing as how we've known for many a years lead can be found in some paints and is harmful, i assumed companies would be smart enough to be sure and know what kind of paints they're using. i mean my home builders make sure they dont slather my walls in lead shouldnt people marketing to my children do the same? should i have to track down every supplier a company uses and check them out first? we put our trust in these companies and they send the work overseas with no one there to check on production. someone somewhere thought they could cut corners and pocket the money. they're just lucky there have been no reports of injury from these toys. Mattell should definately be held accountable for not managing where their supplies come from.

Answer 4

do you realize how many lawsuits that would start? I'm all for Mattel getting in trouble because they are at fault for not double checking the quality of their toys before sending them to stores however I am afraid it might start a massive lawsuit phase with every single toy that has ever been recalled. I have already gathered up their barbie accesories in a bag and taken them to wal mart. I am happy not to ever buy a Mattel toy again.

Answer 5

Less than ten percent of all products shipped into America are ever actually tested or checked for product safety. Largely we rely on some sort of honesty and honor code from other countries. To be able to have every single thing tested coming into the country - pet food, children's toys - EVERY single batch of items - would be INSANE.

It would be totally impractical, it would cost billions of dollars, we'd have to raise taxes considerably or seriously restructure our government in order to arrange for money so that all this testing could be done. To be honest, NOBODY has gotten sick yet from all the lead scares that have been coming out about products from China.

Theoretically the child would have to be constantly exposed for a very long period of time to a considerable amount of lead-tainted items to even begin to show symptoms. There's more damage to our children from the air pollution from cars every single day outside our windows. And, if you haven't changed the air filter in your vehicle recently, your children are breathing up to 6 times more fumes, poisons and pollutions than if they were walking directly behind your car's tail pipe!

Honestly, I think for many years toys were not being made safely in China and only now that it has come to public attention are companies "recalling". Do you really think that it's only been in the past few years that China has made low quality goods? This is CHINA, whose employees work for pennies an hour and which spends only pennies per item to produce, to maximize proceeds for fat American wallets?

I'm sure that not only are the toys our children are growing up with probably not all safe, but I believe that for years, the toys WE grew up with, possibly even the toys OUR parents grew up with if they are young enough, were probably just about as safe, it not even MORE sub-standard, because a lot of the research on the safety of products haven't been instituted until the 50's or later.

Honestly, there's no way to guarantee that any of our products are safe. Unless we regress in time to where people made their own clothing and toys, like some sort of medieval society, we'll always have to use products that were made by someone else and by someone else's standards. There really isn't a practical way that would make it possible to test everything. It would be great if we could, but it's almost entirely impossible. It would be far, far too costly.

Besides, there's much more dangerous things out there right now.

Answer 6

I was shocked when I heard about the Thomas the Tank Engine recall because my son has every single Thomas toy and you know what, he did put them in his mouth and he played with them for years and I was scared and it pissed me off too! And then they had yet ANOTHER recall for other toys, and another and another...its scary to think that I just naturally assumed that these toys were safe for my son to play with and ooopps...as it turns out, nope, sorry they werent! I think your right that someone needs to be held accountable and we need to start setting guidlines and procedures to check before millions of tainted and dangerous toys are sent out on the shelves.

Answer 7

Sadly, the demand for cheap manufactured goods has led to this crisis. It seems ironic but true to say that we the consumer are at fault.
We can't have it both ways. If we insist on paying "bottom" dollar for goods, what kind of quality can we really expect to get in return?

Answer 8

I agree you hear so much about animal testing and all that nosense but when it comes to OUR children it's all hush hush like oh well we'll figure it out! F*** that!!!! why aren't they/we out there raising hell about this? I am expecting in Dec and and I have heard so much about this was recalled and that was recalled! I'm scarred to buy anythign for my baby!!!

Answer 9

The US government needs to tax the HE** out of companies that outsource to other countries. Make it so the taxes are so high that it would be cheaper for them to keep their production in the US where it belongs.