Unsafe Consumer Products?

We’ve often discussed Americans’ peculiar rejection of science, whether it takes the form of climate change denial, fear of vaccinations and GMOs, dismissal of the COVID-19 response, or the welcoming of environmental deregulation.  In many cases, this is the result of corporate disinformation campaigns, launched to confuse the citizenry, calling into question what they’re being told by the scientific community.

Who loses?  Everyone but the corporate stakeholders themselves.  The entire population winds up with a hotter, more toxic, less life-supporting environment.

Now we get the bad news about the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent agency of the United States government. The CPSC seeks to promote the safety of consumer products by addressing “unreasonable risks” of injury; developing uniform safety standards; and conducting research into product-related illness and injury. These are the people who make sure our infants are not consumed in flames from unsafe blankets, and workers aren’t injured when cheaply made ladders collapse.

From NPR:  Many scientists are warning that Nancy Beck — Trump’s nominee to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission — is a dangerous choice. A group of more than 90 leading scientists signed a letter saying her work at the EPA “consistently disregarded scientific best practices, favor[ed] chemical manufacturers, and put vulnerable people in harm’s way.”  Here’s a three-minute “listen.”