This is Connor. He's the apple of his grandpa's eye.
Some people think Connor is being kept altogether too safe. They think he should be put more at risk. They sent me an email about it. Their message is below the fold.
I'm sure you've all seen the email. It will often have some variation in the age range and the individual examples, but it usually starts off like this:
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1920's, 30's, 40's, 50's!!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while
they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't
get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs
covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster
seats, seat belts or air bags. Even when the windows were down!
[...]
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times,we learned to solve the problem.
[...]
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks
and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not
poke out very many eyes.
{...and it goes on....}
(One example)
Now, I'll be generous. I don't think most of the people who are forwarding this thing around really want to put my Connor in danger. Hell, Connor's own great-grandmother has sent me at least three versions of this thing since January, 2008. I know she doesn't wish any harm on our darling Connor, she just gets these things and forwards them on because they tweak nostalgic memories of her childhood, and the ideological viewpoints that piggy-back along with it she has heard hammered so relentlessly over the past three or four decades that it just sounds natural, accepted without deliberation or critical analysis.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster
seats, seat belts or air bags.
[...]
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't
had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law!
Yeah, it's a familiar-sounding message, isn't it? Over-regulation. Frivolous lawsuits. Lack of respect for the law. Society's over-blown sense of entitlement...
Now, I don't know the original source of this particular email. It may or may not be the calculated product of an organized campaign by a right-wing think tank or an astro-turf front organization, but if it isn't, it was certainly spawned in the slime trail of that ideological blitzkrieg.
But let's try to put this thing in a little context, shall we?
Connor's great-grandmother, who is so fond of sending me this email, was born in the last full year of Calvin Coolidge's presidency. Back in those days, we didn't keep statistics on mortality in the United States at the federal level. That data was only tracked at the state level, and then only in some of the states and not any sort of uniform manner Detailed nation-wide records don't start until 1933 (and don't think it's just a coincidence that it's at the beginning of the presidency of a Democrat that we first start to collect data to -- you know -- see how we're doing, and perhaps, just maybe, determine where we might need to use the tools at our disposal to do better. That's a little too much like social engineering for conservative sensibilities!)
In the year Connor's great-grandmother was born, based on the data of the states that did keep records, 73.1 of every one-thousand newborn children died in their first year. 6.5 of every thousand children aged one through four died, as did 1.9 of every thousand 5 through 14 year-olds. Rates for non-white children were nearly double that, 121.2, 10.5, and 2.8 per thousand, respectively. (Note that this data is per one-thousand, not the customary 100,000.)
(Do pay attention to the numbers. There'll be a quiz later -- although it'll be one of those warm and fuzzy liberal quizzes with open books and no time limits and you can consult with your neighbor and we'll probably just give you the answer if you don't feel like going and looking for it yourself. That's just how we are.)
Many of these deaths were due to illnesses and childhood diseases, and as time went on, automobile accidents, but a good number died in accidents not involving motor vehicles. Statistics classifying deaths by causes aren't readily available on-line for years before 1940, but in that year, when Connor's great-grandmother turned 12, 120.6 children per 100,000 died in such "non-transport" accidents in their first year; 36.3 per 100,000 between 1 and 4 years; and 17.7 per 100,000 between the ages of 5 and 14 years old.
Sad to say, one of the causes of those accidental deaths was the very toys the children played with. Many, many more were injured.
Late 1920's advertisement for an A. C. Gilbert Kaster Kit. Cast toy soldiers with molten lead. What could possibly go wrong? (One of my older cousins actually had one of these, though I never got to see it in action.) Gilbert wasn't a fly-by-night outfit. If you were raised before 1970 and ever had an Erector set, a chemistry set, an American Flyer train, early HO trains, or a microscope, you likely had a Gilbert product. But they also appear to have occasionally exhibited spectacularly bad judgment. |
For only 50 cents, Mother's little helper can pitch right in and help out with the ironing (and get a little gender-patterning in the process) with this toy electric iron that actually plugs in and heats up, just like the real thing! But relax, it's completely safe. Though not double-insulated like its more expensive companion, it only heats to 250-degrees so, as the ad says, it can't burn little hands -- after all, that's only 40-degrees hotter than perfectly safe boiling water. |
These rather dangerous-looking weapons playthings were the products of respected industry leaders in the toy business. You wouldn't want to see what the shady fringe outfits were cranking out. Industry insiders, recognizing it was in their own self-interest to have the public confident their products wouldn't kill the children they were purchased for, organized to do something about the problem
Formal efforts to assure toy safety began in the early 1930s, when the Toy Industry Association (then called the Toy Manufacturers Association) established a Toy Safety Committee and began a partnership with the National Safety Council. This initiative led to a comprehensive program for gathering injury data and analyzing hazards, defining safety performance standards, and educating industry on conformance with the standards.
Toy Industry Association: Toy Safety in the United States
It was a voluntary program, and as such, it suffered the principle deficiency of such programs: it was voluntary. Toy manufacturers didn't
have to adhere to its standards, those that did subscribe to the organizations guidelines had varying ideas of what constituted "safe", and in a shifting technological environment, good intentions did not necessarily make for good toys. In 1950, as the atomic age dawned, our old friends at the A. C. Gilbert Company proudly introduced an educational playset for budding nuclear scientists, the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Kit. The sophisticated (and expensive) science set came with everything your little Oppenheimer-wannabe would need:
The set came with four types of uranium ore, a beta-alpha source (Pb-210), a pure beta source (Ru-106), a gamma source (Zn-65?), a spinthariscope, a cloud chamber with its own short-lived alpha source (Po-210), an electroscope, a geiger counter, a manual, a comic book (Dagwood Splits the Atom) and a government manual "Prospecting for Uranium."
Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab (1950-1951) [collector's site]
(emphasis mine)
The Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab is enshrined at number 2 on Radar Magazine's list of the Ten Most Dangerous Toys of All Time.
But then, as now, the really deadly toys were much more mundane -- such as innocuous-looking toys or toy sets with small parts that presented a choking hazard. Often, whether a toy constituted a danger depended on the age of the child playing with it. And as mentioned, the toy manufacturers themselves had a hard time agreeing on what constituted a hazard. It was the kind of environment that was never going to be effectively regulated without an independent body to pass down compulsory rules.
Though a few states had been active for some time, the first federal efforts to regulate consumer safety (and indirectly, toy safety) came with the passage of the Hazardous Substances Labeling Act in 1960, and it is on that foundation that the early regulation of toy safety was built. As the name implies, the authority the act gave the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was limited to requiring labeling to identify products to be labeled "Keep out of the reach of children". But the act was soon strengthened.
Major amendments to the act, the Child Protection Act, were passed in 1966. These amendments, largely in response to the message on consumer issues by President Lyndon Johnson, expanded federal control over hazardous substances. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which administered the law, could now ban substances (after formal hearings) that were deemed too hazardous, even if they had a warning label, if "the degree or nature of the hazard involved in the presence or use of such substance in households is such that the objective of the protection the public health and safety can be adequately served" only by such a ban. The amendments also extended the scope of the law to pay greater attention to toys and children's articles.
Environmental Encyclopedia: Hazardous Substances Act
(emphasis mine)
But the real breakthrough in toy safety came in 1969 when President Richard M. Nixon signed the Child Protection and Toy Safety Act of 1969, which further amended the Hazardous Substances Act. It provided that products that presented electrical, mechanical, or thermal dangers, and substances that were hazardous to children, including toys, could be banned automatically While the EPA-creating, China-opening Richard Nixon was the kind of conservative who would be tagged a RINO today, find some rabid wingnut primaried against him, and be drummed out of the party in disgrace, the Nixon administration didn't exactly engender enthusiasm from the organizations that had made the improvement of toy safety a cause, either.
Irked at what they called "flagrant disregard for the safety of children," the Consumers Union and the Children's Foundation, both nonprofit groups, threatened last week to sue HEW Secretary Elliot Richardson for failure to use the emergency powers. "This is inexcusable inattention," said Morris Kaplan, Consumers Union technical director. "How many children have to be maimed or killed at Christmas before HEW acts?"
Time Magazine, Consumerism: Danger in Toyland (November 30, 1970)
Two years after the Consumers Union chastised the Nixon administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission was created by the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972. The CPSC assumed the role of toy safety watchdog. Independent of any agency or department of the U.S. government, it is headed by -- usually three, but currently five -- commissioners appointed to staggered seven-year terms by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from thousands of types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. The CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard or can injure children. The CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals - contributed significantly to the 30 percent decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.
Consumer Product Safety Commission: About (Overview)
Despite the toy industry's supposed commitment to safety, the CPSC has had its hands full throughout its existence. Witness the number of toys on the aforementioned Radar Magazine Ten Most Dangerous Toys of All Time list that were introduced after 1972. One would think that just the presence of the CPSC's watchful eye would have been enough to make a company think twice about releasing into the wild a game that involved tossing into the air heavy, pointed projectiles which landed with enough force to penetrate skulls, but before the CPSC finally banned them, Jarts and their generic knock-offs, lawn darts, would eventually kill four and injure 6,700 in the early 1980's.
As the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was criticised for failing to take decisive action to enforce the Child Protection and Toy Safety Act of 1969, so has the Consumer Product Safety Commission come under fire for a perceived decrease of activity during the Bush administration. The Wikipedia entry for Toy Safety notes a decrease in funding for the commission even as toy sales increased and the market was inundated with foreign imports from developing countries with lax safety standards and oversight.
Year | Injuries (US $000) | Deaths (under age 15) | CPSC toy safety funding (US$ Millions) | Toy sales (US $ Billions) |
1994 | 154 | | | |
1995 | 139 | | | |
1996 | 130 | | | |
1997 | 141 | | | |
1998 | 153 | 14 | | |
1999 | 152 | 16 | 13.6 | |
2000 | 191 | 17 | 12.0 | |
2001 | 255 | 25 | 12.4 | |
2002 | 212 | 13 | 12.2 | 21.3 |
2003 | 206 | 11 | 12.8 | 20.7 |
2004 | 210 | 16 | 11.5 | 22.4 |
2005 | 202 (estimate) | 20 (estimate) | 11.0 | 22.2 |
2006 | no data | no data | no data† | 22.3 |
The kind of backsliding that went on in the CPSC during the Bush administration has consequences. Unfortunately, when it comes to toy safety, those consequences involve dead and injured children.
When the plastic building sets broke, she told the operator, they shed powerful magnets inside her northern Indiana preschool. Grigsby didn't see the loose magnets, not much bigger than baby aspirin.
But one of her 5-year-old students did. He found some and swallowed them. The extraordinarily strong magnets connected in the boy's digestive tract, squeezed the folds of his intestines and tore holes through his bowels. Only emergency surgery saved his life.
If this product isn't recalled, Grigsby remembers warning, children will die.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission responded with a form letter.
"Because of limited resources and the volume of incidents reported to us, only a few complaints may be selected for follow-up investigation at this time," stated the letter
The Swamp (Chicago Tribune On-line blog): Deadly toys and a misnamed federal agency
As a result, the role of consumer watchdog organizations in "watching the watchers" has not diminished since the years when they were one of the drivers in publicizing the dangers and forcing the implementation of regulations. For instance, a coalition of state activist groups, U. S. Public Interest Research Groups (U.S. PIRG) is one of several groups investigating and publishing lists of dangerous toys. Investigative journalists, to the extent there are many left, also help expose and publicize hazardous toys that unknowing parents may have in their homes.
But let's wind down this excursion into toy safety with a look at how far we've come, despite Bushco backsliding. To help reinforce the message, it's time for that little test I warned you about. Remember those statistics on non-transport accidental deaths? Anyone?
{sigh}
OK, here they are.
from Table 63. -- Death rates for 35 selected causes (rates per 100,000 population in specified group)
Non-motor vehicle accidents (all races, both sexes)
year | Under 1 year | 1 - 4 years | 5 - 14 years |
---|
1940 | 120.3 | 36.8 | 17.1 |
Source:
Center for Disease Control: Vital Statistics Rates in the United States, 1940 - 1960 (Pg. 324 Warning! 50MB pdf)
So what has happened over the ensuing 60-plus years? Has all this attention helped? Are we doing any better? Let's compare those stats with 2006.
year | Under 1 year | 1 - 4 years | 5 - 14 years |
---|
1940 | 120.3 | 36.8 | 17.1 |
2006 | 24.3 | 6.1 | 2.0 |
2006 Data Source:
National Vital Statistics Reports: Deaths: Final Data for 2006
Any way you cut it, that's one hell of an improvement -- A whole lot of kids who are alive because of a government that isn't afraid to intervene to make our lives better, a government that takes the Constitution seriously when it says, "Promote the General Welfare."
And that's just fine with me. By not putting unnecessary hazard in their lives, we've insured that a far smaller percent of little Connor's generation will meet the fate of the less-successful companions of "those who survived the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's" that the email likes to romanticize.
Connor gets quite enough risk in his life from his crazy uncle trying to rip his arms out of their sockets, thank you very much.
And that, dear Kossacks, is where regulation comes from -- not from bored bureaucrats sitting in an office in Washington trying to think up ways to make life miserable and expensive for some innocent and unsuspecting businessman, but from real human suffering and tragedy brought about, all too often, by people who shirk what should be obvious responsibilities, who neglect basic diligence, who sacrifice safety for profit. They bring suffering on those who trust them and their products, and society adopts measures to make sure it never happens again. We have to force them, through regulation, to behave as they should have been behaving all along. That's how regulation came to be.
Previous installments of How Regulation came to be: