Mar 20 2009
Talk about overkill - lead paint in children’s books??
I’m sorry, I’m rolling my eyes and going “Oh brother.”
Group wants vintage kids books off the shelves
A federal law passed last summer and effective Feb. 10 bans lead beyond minute levels in most products intended for children 12 or younger. It was passed after a string of toy recalls. The CPSC [Consumer Product Safety Commission] is interpreting the law to include books.
The CPSC wants children’s books published before 1986 taken off library and school shelves, till they can be tested for lead content.
I can understand concerns over lead paint and how it could affect children, because lead does create health and learning problems. So most testing and product alteration, in my opinion, makes some sense. It makes most sense for things that will regularly be stuck in a child’s mouth.
So…how many kids do we know who regularly lick their books??
Thank goodness most librarians are also rolling their eyes, and refusing this advice. I love the comment, in that article, from Emily Sheketoff, the executive director of the American Library Association in their Washington office: “We’re talking about tens of millions of copies of children’s books that are perfectly safe. I wish a reasonable, rational person would just say, ‘This is stupid. What are we doing?’”
Fortunately, there’s another voice of reason speaking on this subject, from the U.S.’s Center for Disease Control. Health communications specialist Jay Dempsey says, “If that child were to actually start mouthing the book — as some children put everything in their mouths — that’s where the concern would be. … But on a scale of one to 10, this is like a 0.5 level of concern.”
How about dealing with real issues of poverty and health in the country instead of going off on such ridiculous tangents?? Sheesh.
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At least their reason for wanting to remove the books isn’t what’s written in the books. But sheesh. I assume that lead can be absorbed through the skin. But there would have to be an extremely high concentration of lead in the books’ pages for that to be enough of a health risk to justify depriving the children of the reading material.
That really and truly is ridiculous. It’s bad enough how these new regulations are affecting thrift stores, but if they forced this aspect, it would be detrimental to libraries. There’s no way they could afford to pull all those books AND have them tested.
Anything can be taken too far. Europe has instituted standards that preclude using lead in solder for electronics. Unfortunately, at least 3% lead in lead-tin solder is necessary to keep it from growing tiny tin whiskers which can cause things to fail within years. Tin whiskers have disabled pacemakers, shut down nuclear reactors and lost us satellites.
What’s worse, having a tiny amount of lead in my electronics (I’m unlikely to eat) or having my electronics burst into flame?
*Sigh*
Critical items like medical devices and space equipment can continue to use lead, but parts get harder and harder to find with this restriction in place and, since manufacturers change materials without warning, we have to test everything. But these electronic parts will find their way into cars and airplanes, TVs and computer networks that manage traffic and railways and air traffic.
Sometimes, people just miss the big picture.