WurfWhile

The recent news that Thomas and Friends train cars were painted for at least two years with lead - and that upon finding this out the company that contracts to produce them has been slow to acknowledge the problem and deal with it - is pretty sobering for parents of young children. It follows a pattern of middle class and wealthy parents finding out that buying brand names at a premium price (parents who buy Thomas trains spend hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars easily) is no guarantee of safe toys for their children. Nor, apparently, is recalling toys once a solution, since in some cases they just recirculate them. Most parents, until recently, likely thought that lead poisoning was primarily a problem for children in poverty due to old, chipped paint in their homes. Lax regulation of manufacturing imports threatens to change this dynamic to make middle-class and wealthy children targets as well.

So why, other than being the owner of Thomas trains and the parent of young children, am I writing about this? I’m writing because it’s important to recognize this for the conservative, anti-regulation failure it is - and to correct it. There is simply no reason - no reason at all - why the United State should be importing children’s toys with lead in them. There is no reason - no reason at all - why a company like RC2, when finding out it is potentially poisoning our children (not to mention its factory workers in China) doesn’t immediately, publicly, loudly and effectively address the issue and fix it (according to the above linked New York Times article, “the company hasn’t yet explained how the lead got into the trains or what it’s doing to avoid a repeat”). Finally, there is no reason why we shouldn’t have laws that fine companies that fail such basic tests of safety so harshly that they never make the mistake to begin with - so that they never threaten our children whether they live on Chicago’s Gold Coast or in Chicago’s struggling Englewood neighborhood. Lead poisoning debilitates the mind, leading to lifelong learning losses. Trading in lead poisoned children’s toys debilitates our society, showing how little we care for the lives of our youngest, our most vulnerable, our future. It just shouldn’t happen - not to make a buck - and the Bush Administration should back up its talk about caring for our most vulnerable with real leadership and action.