Behold, the Angels of Destruction*: Best Recall This Week

The holidays stress me out. I'd rather clean cookies out of the VCR* than buy gifts that evoke a very merry "meh" from their recipients.

But today the CPSC delivered unto me a seasonal greeting that appeals to my coal black heart.

Precious Moments angels may burn down your house. Starting with your Christmas tree.

That's no star, it's an incendiary device.

Platter-eyed cherubim just got edgy.

Merry bah humbug to y'all!

*Yes, we still have a VCR because Richard Scarry DVDs are impossible to find while the VHS tapes are plentiful and cheap on the resale market. Also, the Raptor likes to trap her hand inside while using the flippy door for toy storage. Also, we use it to watch the excellent Notes Alive! Nutcracker.

**Yes, the title of this post was stolen wholesale from Keith Donahue's book. The book's title is easily its best attribute. Check out his earlier The Stolen Child if you're looking for something to read.

***And while we're on books, I just asked the library to buy Scroogenomics: Why We Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays. This, rather than visions of sugarplums, dances in my head.

Baby Toolkit is written by geek parents who are having a hard time embracing the holidays. We're Amazon affiliates, so if you're just dying to buy something through our Amazon links we get a percentage of the profits. We have no affiliation with Precious Moments, the CPSC, or other media we mention, and we may get a cease & desist notice for the Firestarter cover hack, so you absolutely didn't see it here.

Nipple Cream Recalled: Mommy's Bliss Off The Shelves

A friend sent me a notification of an FDA product recall on Mommy's Bliss Nipple Cream by MOM Enterprises.

Since it's an FDA recall rather than one by the CPSC, it has not shown up in the regular RSS feed of recalls (I recommend everyone who uses a feed reader subscribe to the CPSC recall feed).

Why was the nipple cream recalled? According to Janet Woodcock, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research:

[The] FDA is particularly concerned that nursing infants are being unwittingly exposed by their mothers to this product with dangerous side effects. Additionally, these two ingredients may interact with one another to further compound and increase the risk of respiratory depression in nursing infants.

I find the manufacturer's response to the recall a bit intriguing. Although it has many of the same characteristics of Tylenol's laudable response to the deadly Tylenol tampering of the 80s, I can't help but feel their self-defensiveness is premature as their ingredients are under scrutiny. It also seems apparent from their own web site that they're using natural ingredients in quantities that have not been tested with infants:

The FDA also neglected to mention that the amount of chlorphenesin and phenoxyethanol in the product is minute relative to what is considered allowable for adults.

Wow, I feel like I'm having flashbacks to my April conversation with Johnson & Johnson's Susan Nettesheim regarding the safety of products made by start-up companies and the fact that natural isn't synonymous with safe.

Sharpen Your Pitchforks and Write Your Representatives: Parents Need to Exert a Political Voice

In case you haven't already seen the article, last Saturday the New York Times wrote an article on the damage done to the Consumer Products Safety Commission in recent years. Read the article now if you haven't already done so.

Government cutbacks have crippled public safety mechanisms while traditional safety watchdogs have been replaced with industry advocates. It's made our food and toys unsafe while we were all distracted with concerns over the safest car seat.

We, people who care about children, are a bigger presence than any other. I for one, rank food and product safety as a top priority. How do we use our collective size to reinstate adequate public safety? I don't know, but I'm open to suggestion.

The present toy recalls are probably only the tip of the iceberg.

My friend just emailed that she's so bothered by the recalls that she's sticking with crafts and homemade toys until she sees some clearer sense of direction.

Where do we go from here? Do we become the new watchdogs armed with a powerful Internet and sympathetic friends with fluoroscopes? What organizations (universities, hospitals, charities, think tanks, etc) do we advocate to step into the chasm that is being left by these cutbacks?

If you are a reader who works for such an institution (or know someone who does) what do you need from parents to convince your organization to take up this cause?

A lot of us have been wondering how these defective and dangerous products have made it into the country in the first place. Jim and I both assumed that there had to be random testing at ports as the FDA doesn't police import quality, but customs inspectors have no equipment and they don't have the authority to take suspicious goods for further testing. We couldn't be more wrong. The understaffed and underfunded inspectors that are present have their hands full looking out for their main charge; finding counterfeit products. Few people are watching this problem, and those who care are being systematically washed out or are burning out.

Let's not die of poisoned toothpaste while wearing genuine Nike shoes. Let's do something about this.

FOR a list of policitical people you can petition for change, persuade, or yell at please look up your Federal representatives at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt or see all your state and Federal representatives using the zip code search engine at http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm (I have no idea what this site's politics are, but it has a nice politician search). Thanks Jeremiah for the links.

Guess What: More Lead-Based Recalls

Okay, I've been making all kinds of vitriolic comments on Goodyblog. I'm pretty peeved about American discounters forcing manufacturing to countries that produce stuff cheaply at the cost of safety standards and general labor/human rights.

Please read this article on the whole Wal-Mart/big box discounter connection with unsafe products for the sake of low, low prices. There are more extended explanations of this connection in books like Shopportunity by Kate Newlin (skip right to the Wal-Mart chapters- they are important reading for any American concerned about their kids' future).

Anyway, our stupid cheapskate desires for bargains have bit us in the proverbial rump yet again. These are the new recalls (through noon CST):

• Sponge Bob address books and journals- leaded books. What's next, toilet paper? Nope, that's made in America.
  
• Thomas and Friends, Curious George, and other spinning tops & tin pails- surprise kid, play with these makes your IQ plummet!
• More leaded jewelry- I'm seriously smacking parents upside the head the next time I see a kid toting play jewelry that's not macaroni. Might as well just put some mercury in their breakfast cereal.
• Magnetic Toy Train Set with valued-added lead paint- With all the recent magnet recalls, it was probably a close call as to whether this should be a choking hazard, a lead hazard, or both.

It been a mere week since the last round of recalls. How can a parent keep up? RSS feeds are the only way. (If you're asking what's an RSS feed- see Zrec's great tutorial and learn about the wonders of feed readers like Google Reader.)

Here are the links to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's RSS Feeds and weekly podcasts. Sign up for almost instantaneous bad news.

(Thanks for the RSS tip, Parent Hacks!)