Last year in America there was an extensive list of consumer products, made in China, that were recalled. The 2007 product recall list for high lead content included the following items: jackets and overalls, bracelets, key chains, children’s rings, easels, paint, lunch boxes, necklaces, and wooden toys.

In 2008, imported products containing high lead content continue to be found on store shelves. So far this year the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) product recall list includes Hobby Stores Easter egg containers, X Force Commander Jet Airplanes (sold at the Dollar Store), children’s medal jewelry sold by the Pecoware Company, children’s memory testing cards from Riverside Publishing, children’s sketchbooks from eeBoo Corp, and various children’s educational products from importer RR Donnelley, of Chicago, Ill. The product recall list also includes products with high lead content in various children’s garden rakes, toy banks, and jewelry. In fact, at this point everything on the retail store shelf made in China, even if it has not yet been recalled, is an item that the consumer should assume probably contains lead.

In addition to products containing lead on the store shelves, a new concern for the consumer has surfaced in the dentist office. It has recently been reported that dental crowns, veneers, bridges, and dentures made in China and other foreign dental labs may contain lead. Since about 20% of restorative dental products are outsourced to foreign dental labs, including China, it may be a good idea for consumers to check with dentists to insure that their restorative dental care does not include dangerous amounts of toxic lead from products produced in foreign labs. The FDA currently monitors only a small amount of imported dental products for compliance to its standards.

The problem for the American consumer is that government agencies involved in product oversight have not been properly funded by the federal government. Indeed, the Consumer Product Safety Commission was created in 1974 to insure product safety for the American consumer. However, since its creation, imported products from China into the United States have increased over 300%, but the budget for the CPSC has been slashed to less than half of its original 1974 budgeted amount.

Consider that the CPSC began with 800 employees in 1974. Today, it only has 420 staff members with just one employee monitoring imported toys. It is an agency overwhelmed and therefore the American consumer should not expect it to protect them from all the lead products on American store shelves imported from China. It is evident that many current products containing a high content of lead on American store shelves will never be properly identified or recalled.

The truth is that the world of globalization is presenting increased risk to the American consumer and the natural environment as it provides ever higher profit margins for large national and multi-national corporations. In an effort to increase profit margins by taking advantage of cheap, unskilled labor, an American company contracts China to make a product. This action reduces the cost of making the product to the company and, in effect, may out-source American jobs to mainland China. The product is made by the Chinese and imported back into the country where it is sold on American store shelves. The product is often made with cheap components such as lead paint. The imported product may not be reviewed by the CPSC because the Commission has not been properly staffed. Therefore the product may never be found to contain a high content of lead or ever be recalled.

If a product is discovered with lead, the product is then recalled by the company and apparently the lead somehow just disappears. Hopefully, in the next few years lead won’t be found in our landfills and contaminate the environment. On the other hand, if the product is not discovered to contain lead, but does, it is never recalled. It eventually gets sold to a consumer and the lead content in the item places the buyer’s health at risk. When the product is eventually discarded, it will end up in a landfill and the lead will contaminate the environment.

In an effort to finally address the problem, the United States House and Senate have both recently passed consumer protection bills. The Senate bill nearly doubles the budget of the Consumer Product Safety Commission from $88 million next year to close to $160 million in 2015. It bans lead in all but trace amounts in children’s toys, and it also gives the agency new authority to levy stiff fines against companies that balk at product recalls.

In effect, federal lawmakers have just begun to take the problem of imported lead on consumer products seriously. The new 2008 Consumer Protection Bill also bans lead on children’s toys. That sounds like a great idea until we realize that lead paint has been banned on children’s toys in the United States since 1978.

The solution to faulty consumer products is not politics, new law, or regulation. It is simply providing the money and the authority necessary for the CPSC to do the job it is supposed to do in an age of high consumer product imports and globalization. The federal government spends more than $400 billion per year in grants. In addition, Congressional pork-barrel spending was estimated to be $29 billion in the fiscal year 2006 alone. (Citizens Against Government Waste). A few million dollars to address the problem of lead in imported consumer products has always been available. It is about time that Congress has acted to provide the money necessary to begin to adequately staff the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Indeed, it is Congressional action long overdue to protect the American consumer and the environment from dangerous imported consumer products that contain high levels of lead.