Legalities
Life, Politics and the Law From ABC News Correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg
Jan Crawford Greenburg is a correspondent for ABC News' bureau in Washington DC. She covers politics, the Supreme Court and provides legal analysis for ABC News. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago's law school and is a member of the New York bar.
RECENT POSTS
MONTHLY ARCHIVES
« Previous | Main | Next »
A Christmas Caution
November 27, 2007 3:23 PM
The Christmas music was playing last night, and the tree was halfway lit (I know it’s only November, but Thanksgiving was really early this year), when my 10-year-old daughter shrieked.
“Mom,” she screamed, “these lights can kill us.”
I knew that already, since I accidentally cut a lighted strand in half last year. It was about 1 a.m., and I was admiring the towering evergreen I'd just finished decorating in our living room when I saw this one little branch that was a tiny bit out of place. So I snipped it--not seeing, of course, the dark green cord I’d wrapped around it hours earlier. There was a poof, the scissors flew out of my hand, and half the tree—which I’d spent the past six hours decorating--went dark.
Yep, lights can be deadly all right. Let’s just say that pretty much killed my Christmas spirit for the evening last year.
But my daughter continued with some urgency: “They cause cancer, Mom. And birth defects.”
Hmmm….this was a new one on me. So I checked, and sure enough, right there on the strand she was holding, was this label:
CAUTION: PROP 65 WARNING—Handling the coated electrical wires of this product exposes you to lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects and other reproductive harm. Wash hands after use.
Now I knew my kids probably shouldn’t chew on the strands (or lick them)—there’s that whole electric shock problem. But handling them? Thanks to the state of California and its labeling requirements for products with lead, we now know decorating a tree is even more dangerous than we had dared imagine.
With Jingle Bells cheerily playing away in the background—and with no prompting from me--the kids rushed over to the sink, where they frantically scrubbed their hands with dish soap (which surely causes dry skin). There was much consternation about getting a deadly disease from the Christmas lights—and what, they wanted to know, is “ree-pro-duck-tive” harm, anyway?
Thinking that discussion surely could wait until after the one about Santa Claus, I hurriedly (but carefully) cut off the labels and plugged in the lights.
Maybe next year we’ll just use candles.
November 27, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (2)
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
We had more protection against products that harm us before globalization, and before the Bush Administration subverted the function of many government agencies by pursuing policies that favor business profitability with little or no regard for the interests of consumers, aka American Citizens.
With regard to lead paint in toys, costume jewelry, poison toothpaste, etc., I have not heard much in the way of a policy solution from the Bush White House or the Consumer Protection Agency about protecting the American consumer from harmful imported products.
Will Bush expand the mandate of the CPA to proactively protect us or will American consumers be the guinea pigs that test the safety of imported goods. Is that the marketplace solution? Japan sends her own meat inspectors to the US. No meat is imported to Japan without their seal of approval.
Will Bush decide that importers will be required to play a role in product safety or what?
Will Bush kowtow to his principle constituency, big business, and do nothing?
Posted by: Neil | Nov 27, 2007 6:24:15 PM
This is another example of taking something that is good in principle, and suspending ALL common sense in it's application.
I'm sure if you were fed a steady diet of Christmas light cord scrapings for the next 30 years you would likely develop a medical condition - but I would imagine it would have more to do with digestive track damage than cancer.
Oh - be sure to never let your children drink from a water hose. I just read the package when buying one the other day and noticed all of them have cancer causing agents. Seriously.
Posted by: Daniel Watkins | Nov 27, 2007 9:01:58 PM
Post a comment
