Re: Jan Drew: Where will this lead?

From: Joel M. Eichen, D.D.S. (joeleichen_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 07/10/04 

Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 06:21:39 -0400

There was a book, "While England Slept ........"

We have our own book called, "While Jan Drew Slept ......"

Its about a nursery schyool aide who was very busy with 17 micrograms
worth of mercury plus root canal treatment while innocent
pre-schoolers got pizined by lead.

JOEL

>On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 06:16:08 -0400, "Joel M. Eichen, D.D.S." <joeleichen@yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>Among childhood hazards, you won't find many that are scarier than
>lead.
>
>Jan would dispute that!
>Why worry about lead when we have 17 micrograms of mercury?
>
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>***********************************************
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>Posted on Sat, Jul. 10, 2004
>
>
>Consumer Watch | Is your child's ring unleaded?
>
>By Jeff Gelles
>
>Inquirer Columnist
>
>
>Among childhood hazards, you won't find many that are scarier than
>lead.
>
>Even at low levels, exposure to this soft, heavy metal can diminish a
>child's intelligence, cause attention and behavioral problems, and
>impair hearing and growth.
>
>Great progress has been made in reducing the danger of lead poisoning
>by eliminating it from gasoline and paint and by focusing on the
>special risks facing those who live in deteriorating, older houses and
>apartments.
>
>Still, federal health officials estimate that close to half a million
>children ages 1 to 5 have clearly hazardous levels of lead in their
>blood - and they also point out that no level of lead is known to be
>"safe."
>
>Why the brief lesson in toxicology?
>
>The better to understand the jaw-dropping lunacy underlying this
>week's recall by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and four
>importers of toy jewelry.
>
>Since January 2002, these companies have sold about 150 million pieces
>of toy jewelry through vending machines all over the country - in
>malls, discount stores, groceries and the like.
>
>If your kid ever bugged you for a couple of quarters and you
>mindlessly agreed, your family - particularly younger children prone
>to chewing or sucking on toys - may be at risk.
>
>Why? Because roughly half of those 150 million trinkets were made with
>lead.
>
>Up to 69 percent lead
>
>Not just tiny amounts of lead, either. According to the CPSC, which
>tested 20 samples of the jewelry, 10 of them contained high lead
>levels. One item was 69 percent lead by weight.
>
>The importers said they believed that a non-lead surface coating "made
>the lead inaccessible to children under reasonably foreseeable use,"
>according to a statement released after the recall.
>
>But the CPSC's tests on the products - designed to mimic the effects
>of handling, sucking and swallowing the jewelry - showed otherwise.
>
>The coating was clearly of little use in the case that brought this
>type of jewelry to the agency's attention, in which an Oregon boy
>suffered lead poisoning after swallowing a toy pendant.
>
>To their credit, now that the CPSC has identified the jewelry as
>hazardous, the companies are working to make amends.
>
>They joined the agency in voluntarily recalling all the jewelry, even
>if half of it was lead-free, and urging parents to search their houses
>for the toys.
>
>They said they were moving quickly to remove the last two million of
>the rings, necklaces and bracelets from machines, where they sold for
>25 to 75 cents apiece.
>
>They've also formed the Safe Jewelry Council, to "bring a national
>focus within the industry on the continued safe importation,
>distribution and sale of toy jewelry."
>
>"The safety of children remains the importers' number one concern and
>priority," the companies said.
>
>A foolish decision
>
>If you're skeptical about where safety falls on their priority list,
>that makes two of us. It's hard to imagine anything as risky and
>foolish as taking a hazardous substance, coated or not, and using it
>to make baubles targeted at little children.
>
>But the companies aren't alone in deserving blame. The jewelry recall
>also raises troubling questions about the effectiveness of our
>regulatory system.
>
>Ken Giles, a CPSC spokesman, says the agency's policy is that "there
>should not be any accessible lead in a child's product."
>
>How can consumers trust that there isn't?
>
>"The underlying expectation is that industry is doing its own testing,
>so that they are in compliance and are not putting hazardous materials
>into the market," Giles says.
>
>For now, the industry has assured the CPSC that it won't import any
>more lead jewelry until it can meet the agency's testing standards.
>
>A better conclusion would be to give up on using this highly toxic
>metal in children's toys.
>
>Why take such an utterly pointless risk?
>
>(For more information on the recall, go to www.cpsc.gov.)
>
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