San Diego product liability lawyers have been following lead content legislation and noted that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) voted 3-2 in favor of putting into operation a new lead content law, which would set the lead content limit at 100 parts per million. August 14th is when the new law will take effect. Reducing the content of lead in children's products has been a high priority for the Consumer Product Safety Commission. In 2008 a Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which mainly focused on the high lead content in quite a lot of children's products, was passed through the diligent efforts of the CPSC and provisions within that act made way for the new law.
Excessive lead content and the resulting dangers were unearthed in 2007 after various recalls were made of children's toys. Companies such as Mattel had manufactured many popular toys in China and high levels of lead were found in the surface paints coated on the toys, after they were sold in the United States. Any parent knows that the first thing a young child does when they receive a new toy is put it in its mouth, this is how the exposure happened. As a result there were many parents outraged that substandard and hazardous children's toys, and other products for children, containing dangerous levels of lead were being brought into the country by such well-liked companies like Mattel and other big U.S. toy retailers.
According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry the potency of lead is a poison that widely affects all people but is especially toxic to the developing bodies and nervous systems of young children. Other than in children, severe injury and death is a higher risk for women who are pregnant and their unborn fetuses. Early effects of lead can manifest in children as hyperactivity, inattentiveness and irritability. Lead exposure has been linked to learning disorders, loss of hearing, growth delay, brain damage and in some cases death. Lead levels have repeatedly been lowered in attempts to reach safe levels. The CPSC was able to reduce levels to 600 parts per million in 2009 then to 300 and now to 100 ppm. Physicians can administer tests to determine if children have been exposed to lead.
