Is It Okay To Laugh At The CPSC Yet?

The US Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) is, in their words, "charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from thousands of types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction." Why, then, did Macmillan today announce a recall of Big Rex & Friends (no Amazon link available for obvious reasons)? Because... the children's storybook has a RED DOT WITH LEAD IN IT!!! OH NO!!! The unreasonable risk of serious injury or death!!!! Save the children!!!! The horror of red plastic dots with lead in them!!!!

Seriously, this stems from an unreasonable new lead level standard that is over-broad and absolutely absurdly disproportionate to the risks. For this to be a hazard, the kid would have to tear this dot out of the book and suck on it. Even then, the lead exposure would probably be noticeably less than the amount in his food!

Thank, once again, the US PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) for this absurd fear-mongering finding. My own interest as a member of the public? Quit wasting resources on finding stuff like this, on shipping the books, destroying them, etc over a completely unrealistic hazard. The kid is more likely to bleed to death from a paper cut (OH NO!!! THE HORROR!!! BETTER BAN PAPER!!!) than for this plastic to ever harm a child or expose them to a significant amount of lead in the real world. But laugh at the CPSC for the absurd lead standards...