California Wants Target to Pull Valentine Bears (Chinese-Made Gifts Have Lots of Lead)

The California attorney general is asking Target Corp. to pull its Valentine's Day "Message Bears" from store shelves over concerns that they have illegal levels of lead.

In a letter sent to the company Monday, Attorney General Jerry Brown said testing of the holiday toys revealed lead levels that violate federal law.

The products were identified as two of Target's "Message Bears" -- one a pink stuffed bear with "XOXO" across the chest and the other a brown stuffed bear with "I Love U" across the chest, with "love" represented by a heart.

Investigators from the Center for Environmental Health, a nonprofit watchdog, found that the bears' inflated vinyl letters contained well over federal limits for lead in products for children under the age of 12.

Beth Hanson, a spokeswoman for Target, said the company received Brown's letter and has pulled the toys. She says it is investigating.

Lead exposure can damage the nervous system and other organs, and can be especially harmful to children.

"Parents need to know that lead-tainted vinyl has no place on products for their kids," Caroline Cox, research director for CEH, said in a statement.

The bears were made in China and sold exclusively by Target stores, the center's report stated.

"In this case, the laboratory identified lead levels nearly 10 times higher than those allowed under federal law," Brown's letter stated. "We ask that you stop selling the bears immediately and that you accept returns of the product, even without a receipt, as part of any corrective action."

OK .. here goes ....

Yesterday I argued that people do not read nor hear correctly.

The problem with health care is .... well .... there isn't any.

Bandaids are overly expensive perhaps, but the care from the person that proscribed that bandaid is above excellent.

I remember back in the late '60's and early '70's a few of my fellow hippie friends got cushy jobs with some neighborhood agency type, going in older sections of Boston and testing for lead paint.

Their report would then somehow force a landlord (usually ... it seemed that renters were the ones that were subject to those evil cheap paint buyers .... landlords) .... to re-paint his entire investment with latex paint (more jobs for us hippies) and etc., etc.

Now ..... what's the deal with lead anyway?

Well, lead can poison a human, especially a child ... and lead poisoning can cause mild mental retardation.

I think it was back then that the "for the children" momentum learned it's path.

So lead was the first (to me, anyway) "greenhouse gas" to force a lot of legislation and programs that are still with us today, though every trace of lead is gone from American life outside of car batteries.

If 14 million toys came into the US with lead paint on them .... not all 14 million are going to be sold.
If those toys are cars, they will be played with by boys.
Boys don't eat cars.

If the toys are dolls, they will be played with by girls (leaving open the obvious argument for metro Washingtonians and other politicos).

The girls are not going to eat the dolls.

Lead needs to be ingested to cause harm.

So, though I may not be as eloquent as some in articulating my thoughts ... this whole lead thing is a scam.

Show me the pictures and medical reports of the millions (I'm assuming) of Chinese that are suffering from Plumbism.

Let's start there.

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