OMH! The very company that started the government down the path to this draconian law that threatens ordinary citizens who want to sell their used children’s clothes, books and toys at flea markets and yard sales, small business who sell baby toys, and ATV manufactures, is getting a waiver! While everyone else has to submit their products for testing to an independent lab, Mattel can use it’s own lab:
Toy-makers, clothing manufacturers and other companies selling products for young children are submitting samples to independent laboratories for safety tests. But the nation’s largest toy maker, Mattel, isn’t being required to do the same.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently, and quietly, granted Mattel’s request to use its own labs for testing that is required under a law Congress passed last summer in the wake of a rash of recalls of toys contaminated by lead. Six of those toys were produced by Mattel Inc., and its subsidiary Fisher-Price.
Evidently, they’ve convinced the government that their labs are rigorous enough to test for lead paint. If that’s the case, why the heck weren’t they able to detect it on their toys last year?
Here’s an example of what it’s like for a small business owner to have to submit to this law.
It’s a good thing I give away my kid’s clothes to friends, I wouldn’t want to get busted by the feds for trafficking in used kiddie clothes. I’m currently in the possession of a large bag of stuffed animals and other toys that we are getting rid of, I would hate to see it fall into the wrong hands (the Goodwill) who would have to spend hundreds of dollars testing them.
(via)
