China, Lead and our desire for Cheap Shit.

It seems that barely a week goes by without us being told of another item that has been manufactured in China for sale in the west which is loaded with dangerous levels of lead.

This week a report from the California based Center for Environmental Health came to my attention, mainly as it focusses on Hannah Montana, and I have a child who is slap bang in the target audience for the popular Disney Channel production.

Anyway CEHCA went out and randomly bought a bunch of Hannah Montana products and found dangerous levels of lead in them.

Recent studies have shown that lead exposure can reduce a childs IQ, cause ADHD and reduce reaction times.

You'd think that with the number of these discoveries occurring in products manufactured in China something would be being done. The problem is China is an economy built and strengthened on human rights abuses. It's not surprising then that they don't give a flying fuck about people and whether they are producing dangerous products to sell overseas. The only thing the Chinese power-mongers seemingly give a toss about at the moment is money and power, and so the solution to the problem of dangerous toys won't come from there. Unless of course it starts to hurt their bottom line, then they might force their manufacturing industry to clean up their act.

Of course this is unlikely to happen as the other link in the chain, the western retailers, want to sell cheap shit at a high price and China is a great source of cheap shit so our retailers will buy it in and sell it on to us no questions asked. The odd bit probably gets picked up and a low key recall is issued but most of it probably won't be returned and the profits are made.

More info here

The shitty economy of stuff we don't need.