Regulators excluded lead from toy hazards despite mass toy recalls

Evidence

Mattel, the world’s largest toy maker, has had to recall millions of toys produced in Chinese factories because they contained lead-contaminated paint (Sellers, 2010). It is surprising that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has not listed lead among the top toy hazards. In 2007, Julie Vallese, then the spokesperson for the commission, minimized the omission by exonerative comparison:

“It’s not your child’s dollhouse, when it comes to lead that’s going to actually cause injury, it’s your own house. And that’s where parents should be focused if they want to really tackle the issue of lead” (CBSNews, 2007). The problem of deteriorating lead paint in old houses and other sources of lead dust does not justify excluding lead as a toy hazard, especially in this era of outsourced production to countries with weak safety standards and deficient enforcement of those they have.

— Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1776

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why hasn’t the Consumer Product Safety Commission listed lead among top toy hazards despite millions of recalled toys — was there industry pressure comparable to the earlier Lead Industries Association?
• DEEPTHINKING: The exonerative comparison — your own house, not your child’s dollhouse — is a sophisticated instance of framing that shifts regulatory responsibility onto parents while the toy fault is outsourced to weak-enforcement countries. But on reflection this may be more a good exemplar of the book’s theory than a top-5% standalone insight.