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China Finds Another Way To Poison US Kids

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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The AP has discovered that China is replacing lead in a number of the pieces of jewelry that it makes for export with cadmium. Medical books say that the metal can cause irreversible liver and kidney damage. The AP analysis shows that “The most contaminated piece analyzed in lab testing  contained a startling 91 percent cadmium by weight.”

The news is another example of how the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has failed American children and the parents who buy them their toys.

Mattel (NYSE:MAT) and Fisher-Price paid a very modest $2.3 million in civil penalties early last year for importing toys with excessive levels of lead paint. Most of the toys were sold in 2007. Congress criticized both the toy companies and the CPSC for lax compliance and enforcement of existing laws about metal content in children’s toys.

The CPSC and toy companies have been encouraged to send more inspectors to the Chinese factories that make toys for export to the US and press the People’s Republic to crack down on manufacturers that do not comply with safety rules. The CPSC and toy firms claim that they cannot police the hundreds of facilities that make the products.

Chinese companies continue to export toys to the US that they almost certainly know are dangerous. That will continue until the US government puts an embargo on the products and dispenses with the excuse that American toy companies cannot make inspections in China. There is no need to inspect what can’t be sold.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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