Remember our post about the new Consumer Product Safety Act that will make it illegal to sell children's products unless they were tested for lead and phthalates?
Besides threatening to put local artisans and small businesses who can't afford the test (at $4,000 a pop), the law has another unintendend consequence: library may ban children's books in order to comply:
The Consumer Product Safety Act was passed by Congress Aug. 14 in reaction to findings that some toys imported from China contained dangerous levels of lead. President Bush signed the legislation, which includes stricter limits on lead levels in children's products.
The American Library Association said it fears the law has unintended consequences, and libraries may face the choice of closing their children's sections, banning children under the age of 12 or completing expensive lead testing for every book. [...]
This unintended consequence of the new law isn't the first to rear its head since Congress passed it. A flurry of complaints from second-hand retailers afraid of being bankrupted by the new requirements prompted the commission to release a clarification on Jan. 8 stating the law doesn't require all children's items to be tested.
However, it does make it illegal to distribute any children's item that exceeds the lead limits, said Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman Joseph Martyak. Though libraries, schools, and thrift shops aren't required to test books for lead, they could face civil or criminal penalties if a book with an elevated lead level leaves its shelves.
http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200901282258/NEWS01/90128041 - Thanks Tiffany!
It reminds me of that ever so timely quote, "Where one burns books, one eventually burns bodies.... "
It does however offer us the opportunity to use INCREDIBLY bad Taste & Sarcasm when complying ;^)
Anything stopping China from attacking markets with social dumping seems fair to me.