How the Bush Administration Made America Safe for Dangerous Toys

[Octafish]

De-regulation is the friend of the greed-head. Mother Jones helps us understand:

You're Not the Regulator of Me: How the Bush Administration Made America Safe for Dangerous Toys

China gets the blame for this year's wave of recalls—but American industry has been working for years to gut government safety standards.

Marla Felcher
MotherJones.com
November/December 2007 Issue

Late one afternoon in October 2006, Carolyn and Ghassan Daher took their five-year-old son Brayden to a party near Seattle. Kids got goody bags filled with toys and candy; a favorite were the yo-yo water balls, liquid-filled spheres attached to long, stretchy cords. Brayden and his friends hit the kiddie dance floor, swinging the balls over their heads like lassos. Suddenly Brayden came running to his mother, clutching his neck. "His eyes were watering and bloodshot, and I couldn't see anything because the string was clear," Carolyn recalls. "I couldn't see it was around his neck. The ball was pulling down—it was like a rock with flashing colors." After what seemed like an eternity, she was finally able to break the cord. Brayden suffered no permanent injuries.

But Carolyn was shaken, and when she got home she searched the Internet for information on yo-yo balls. She found that (like most toys in the United States) they are typically imported from China or Taiwan, and that (also like most toys) they have never been tested for safety by the U.S. government. She read about Lisa Lipin, an Illinois mother whose son had nearly been strangled by a yo-yo ball in July 2003. Lipin begged the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (cpsc) to follow the lead of France, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and ban the balls. "But they just wanted me to go away," she says. In September of that year, despite close to 200 near-deadly incidents, the cpsc stated that the balls posed "a low risk of strangulation." The agency's chairman, Harold "Hal" Stratton, even told Good Morning America that he'd forbidden his own children from playing with the balls—but would not take them off the market. By late 2006, the agency had reports on 416 incidents involving yo-yo balls; 290 of them were classified as strangulation/suffocation.

Ever since Illinois-based rc2 Corp. recalled 1.5 million Thomas the Tank Engine trains in June after they were found to be coated in lead paint, the headlines have been full of reports on the dangers of Chinese imports—lead paint on Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street toys, Barbies with small magnets that came loose, Playskool sippy cups whose spouts broke off, causing toddlers to choke. Most of the stories have focused on the lack of manufacturer oversight in China. But the root of the problem is closer to home: The cpsc, created to prevent hazardous products from winding up in American homes, has been gutted by decades of manufacturer lobbying and White House interference—and the Bush administration has finally paralyzed it to the point that it can barely function. "What's going on there is not benign neglect," says Ann Brown, cpsc chairman under President Clinton. "It's the systematic dismantling of the agency."

the cpsc was created in 1972 with a broad range of powers. It could impose mandatory safety standards, ban or recall products found to be unsafe and dangerous, and levy fines on companies that hid safety information. Its job was to keep tabs on more than 15,000 types of consumer goods—just about everything you'd find in a Wal-Mart except food and drugs. By 1979, it had a budget of $44 million and a staff of nearly 900, whose investigations resulted in 545 recalls that year alone.

Then came the Reagan administration. Within months of taking office, Reagan convinced Congress to pass legislation that crippled the commission: Before it could impose mandatory standards on any product, it had to wait for industry to write its own standards, and then prove that they had failed. Recalls plummeted to fewer than 200 a year, and by 1988 the commission's budget was down 22 percent and its staff had been cut almost in half.

CONTINUED...

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2007/11/youre-not-the-regulator-of-me.html

Tragedy is avoidable injury and death.
Good government is needed to protect the People.
Willfully getting rid of such protection is corruption -- a form of treason.

[Octafish]

1. Deregulation of coal industry behind fatal accidents in US mines

Not just deadly toys in Bush's America. Work is a scarier place than it needs to be.

Deregulation of coal industry behind fatal accidents in US mines

By Samuel Davidson
9 March 2006
World Socialist Web Site

Most if not all of the deaths this year in US coal mines could have been prevented if safety measures proposed for nearly two decades had not been blocked and eventually killed by officials from the Clinton and Bush administrations.

In recent years, officials from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), under orders from the Bush White House to promote a “partnership” with the coal companies, have overturned several safety procedures in place for years and drastically reduced the enforcement of existing safety standards. In addition, government officials have not mandated the use of safety equipment widely used in other countries that has proved to save lives and prevent injuries.

To date, 21 coal miners have died on the job this year in the US. Another three miners working in metal and non-metal mines have also been killed. The most recent fatalities occurred on February 16 and 17. On the first date, 33-year-old Tim Caudill was crushed to death when a section of roof fell at the TECO coal mine near Hazard, Kentucky. On the following day, 35-year-old William Junior Miller was crushed to death between two coal cars in an underground pit in Maryland.

While the investigations into this year’s fatal mining accidents—including the Sago Mine disaster that killed 12 West Virginia miners—are still continuing, initial evidence indicates that the elimination of previously existing federal and state regulations, the suppression of additional regulations and the lack of enforcement of existing regulations all played a direct role in these tragedies.

SNIP...

Respirators

Each of the 13 miners who died from asphyxiation was equipped with a respirator that provided only one hour’s worth of oxygen. On September 24, 2001, MSHA withdrew a proposal that required mine owners to stock caches of additional respirators that would give miners more time to escape or be rescued.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/mar2006/msha-m09.shtml

It's no wonder why some people find money so important.
It's unbelievable that some people put money ahead of human life.

[Karenina]

5. K&R!!!

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

11. Also contributes to poisoned water and air, landslides, and global warming.

I used to believe the government was intended to protect the vulnerable from the barbaric. That was before I discovered,...the barbarians control the government.

x(

[Olney Blue]

2. Not to mention "faith-based" science and medicine.....

[Octafish]

16. Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming

From our friends at the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science

Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion

Union of Concerned Scientists
January 3, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 3–A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.

"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."

Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to "Manufacture Uncertainty" on Climate Change details how the oil company, like the tobacco industry in previous decades, has

* raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence

* funded an array of front organizations to create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings

* attempted to portray its opposition to action as a positive quest for "sound science" rather than business self-interest

* used its access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming

ExxonMobil-funded organizations consist of an overlapping collection of individuals serving as staff, board members, and scientific advisors that publish and re-publish the works of a small group of climate change contrarians. The George C. Marshall Institute, for instance, which has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil, recently touted a book edited by Patrick Michaels, a long-time climate change contrarian who is affiliated with at least 11 organizations funded by ExxonMobil. Similarly, ExxonMobil funds a number of lesser-known groups such as the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. Both groups promote the work of several climate change contrarians, including Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist who is affiliated with at least nine ExxonMobil-funded groups.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html

These turds want to use all the oil up, destroying the planet in the process,
because they can make money off of it.

Then there's all the lying about stem cells.

[magellan]

3. Add dangerous food to the list, too. n/t

[Froward69]

4. Add with all that

the appointed person to head the product safety Administration. not only heads a gutted administration butalso turns down financing to make the safety administration do, what it is supposed to do.

[leftchick]

6. The Republican Poisoning of America: Ignoring the threat of lead in drinking water

K&R

<snip>

This is another one of my pet issues: the ongoing poisoning of American by Republican policies. This is not an accidental thing. It is a byproduct of intentional deregulation, intentionally ignoring clear warning signs of health problems, and allowing companies and utilities to circumvent environmental regulations. Sometimes it is very specific: Bush ordering the EPA to lie about the toxicity of the World Trade Center smoke plume, thus poisoning thousands of New Yorkers, particularly first responders, leading to a syndrome known as "Ground Zero Cough" which has struck New York's rescue workers or Conrad Burns (A Montana Republican now happily ousted from the Senate by Jon Tester, a populist organic farmer) advocating testing pesticides on humans. Other times it is a more general increase in dangerous pollutants thanks to Republican blind faith in deregulation. But there is now a clear pattern of Republican policies threatening the health of Americans through our air, drinking water and soil.

The latest threat is lead in our drinking water. There has been a noticable increase in lead contamination in America, leading to a real health risk. Yet the EPA under Bush is ignoring the problem despite having a good idea that it is happening and why. From Salon.com:

In the spring of 2003, home inspectors from the District of Columbia's Department of Health came to Andy and Shelli Bressler's century-old house in Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood, looking for lead. Like 300,000 young children in the U.S. each year, the Bresslers' 2-year-old twins had elevated lead in their blood, which their doctor picked up during a routine checkup. Lead affects neurological development in children, and twins Adam and Casey had taken a long time to reach milestones such as walking and talking...

Then, in January 2003, Bressler read in the Washington Post that thousands of homes in D.C. had high lead in their drinking water. The problem constituted one of the worst episodes of water contamination in U.S. history and signaled a potential crisis in metropolitan areas across the country. In Washington, tens of thousands of people unwittingly drank tap water contaminated with lead for several years; in a few cases, the tap water contained enough lead to be classified as a hazardous waste. When tests confirmed that their tap water contained high lead levels, Bressler says, "we immediately stopped drinking and cooking with tap water. Finally, the boys' lead levels came down."

To this day, officials involved in the D.C. crisis contend that no one was significantly harmed by D.C.'s lead problem. But Salon has recently learned that one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for the "no harm" conclusion has been falsely represented. During the crisis, the city's Water and Sewer Authority and Health Department sent inspectors to the homes of children with elevated blood lead to look for the source. At a 2004 congressional hearing investigating the causes of the exposure, D.C. water authority general manager Jerry Johnson testified that in every case the assessments showed that water was not the source of the child's lead exposure.

[Karenina]

7. POISONED PIPELINES

Water, food, consumer goods...

[leftchick]

10. Every Single Consumer Good including drugs

Do the elitist bushists have their very own supply of goods separate from we the serfs here is america?

[Octafish]

12. Report: FDA so underfunded, consumers are put at risk

From USA Toady:

Report: FDA so underfunded, consumers are put at risk

By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY

The Food and Drug Administration is so underfunded and understaffed that it's putting U.S. consumers at risk in terms of food and drug safety, an advisory panel to the FDA says in a report to be discussed Monday.
The report — developed in the past year by experts from academia, industry and other government agencies — delivers a scathing review of the state of the FDA, which regulates 80% of the nation's food, its drugs, vaccines and medical devices.

The report details a "plethora of inadequacies" in the agency, including:

•Inadequate inspections of manufacturers, noting that foodmakers, for example, are inspected about once every 10 years.

•A "badly broken" food-import system and food supply "that grows riskier each year." In the past 35 years, FDA inspections of the food supply have dropped 78% due to soaring numbers of products and inadequate FDA funding.

•A depleted FDA staff, which is about the same size as it was 15 years ago despite huge growth in agency responsibilities. Instead of being proactive, the agency is often in "fire-fighting" mode.

•A workforce with a "dearth" of scientists who understand emerging technologies. Turnover rates in some scientific positions at the FDA run twice that of other government agencies.

•An "obsolete" information-technology system.

CONTINUED...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2007-12-02-fda_N.htm?csp=34

This is not the America I remember, leftchick.
And I've never dreamed a nightmare like it.

[leftchick]

18. I weep for my children Octafish

and wonder if I should have moved them from this country long ago. My son is reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle right now and it breaks my heart to think we are heading back to those dark ages at light speed now.

:(


:hug: loveya Octafish

[Richard Steele]

8. K&R

[Octafish]

19. FAA says serious runway incidents have decreased by 25 percent

Thanks to the (ultra)conservative approach, it's not safe to fly, even when on the ground:

Risk is high for 'catastrophic' runway crash, report

FAA says serious runway incidents have decreased by 25 percent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Air travelers face a high risk of a catastrophic collision on a U.S. airport runway, congressional investigators concluded Wednesday.

They cited faltering federal leadership, malfunctioning technology and overworked traffic controllers as reasons for the danger.

The investigators gave the Federal Aviation Administration credit for reducing runway safety incidents from a peak in 2001 but said "FAA's runway safety efforts subsequently waned" as the number of incidents settled at a lower level.

Then in fiscal 2007, which ended September 30, the incidents spiked to 370, or 6.05 runway incursions per 1 million air traffic control operations, almost returning to 2001's 407 incursions and 6.1 rate. An incursion is any aircraft, vehicle or person that goes where it shouldn't be in space reserved for takeoff or landing.

At this time, "no single office is taking charge of assessing the causes of runway safety problems and taking the steps needed to address those problems," the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, said in a report requested by Rep. Jerry F. Costello, D-Illinois, and Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-New Jersey.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/12/05/runway.safety.ap/#cnnSTCText

When it comes to letting someone else do the driving, I've always liked trains.

[Virginia Dare]

9. Putting the foxes in charge of the chicken house...

Bush opened the doors to our federal government to the corporate overlords and let them rape and pillage, meanwhile Congress sat by with their collective thumbs up their butts.

[Elspeth]

13. "It's the systematic dismantling of the agency." The neocon strategy in a nutshell

......

[nam78_two]

14. Darn-too late to recommend-here is a kick-Thanks Octafish.nt

[lonestarnot]

15. Never expect good government when a repiglicon holds office.

[Initech]

17. If ya cant beat 'em, change the rules.