Sunday, November 04, 2007

CPSC Head and Toy Industry In Bed While Our Kids Suck Lead

Bill W, Crooks and Liars: Steve [Benen] wrote about this scandal previously, now the author [WaPo’s Elizabeth Williamson] is now speaking out and giving more details. (Click the pic for the vid.)

Just four days ago Speaker Nancy Pelosi was calling for Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Acting Chairman Nancy Nord to resign after she fired off a couple of letters to Congress opposing tougher legislation that would strengthen the agency that is supposed to oversee the safety of consumer goods, echoing White House concerns that favored industry profits over the health and welfare of consumers, especially children in the wake of recall after recall and the revelation that the CPSC has only one full-time employee that tests toys.

Well, as it turns out, Nancy Nord should have taken Pelosi’s advice and left to spend more time with her family while the getting was good. CNN had WaPo’s Elizabeth Williamson on to discuss her article today which reveals that Nord “and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children’s furniture industries and others they regulate” while parents were buying millions of lead-tainted toys. Some of the trips “were sponsored by lobbying groups and lawyers representing the makers of products linked to consumer hazards.”

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