Asbestos has been found in a variety of consumer products, including one of this season's biggest-selling Christmas toys, according to the nation's largest asbestos victims organizations.The CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit, two brands of children's play clay, powdered cleanser, roof sealers, duct tapes, window glazing, spackling paste and small appliances were among the products in which asbestos was found by at least two of three labs hired by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.
The group, which was created in 2004 by asbestos victims and their families, spent more than $165,000 to have government-certified laboratories examine hundreds of consumer products over 18 months to determine whether asbestos was present.
It is unusual for a group of volunteers, many of whom have asbestos-caused diseases, to fund research that impacts public health.
"We had to. No one else was doing it," said Linda Reinstein, the group's co-founder and executive director. "This is information that consumers and Congress must have because asbestos is lethal and we naively believe that the government is protecting us, when it's not."
The product that is of greatest concerns to some public health experts is the fingerprint kit, which is a huge seller, according to sales personnel interviewed by the Seattle P-I.
The kit, made in China, is one of several items licensed by CBS after its popular "CSI" science-crime shows. This model has an extensive array of plastic tools, inks and three types of very fine powders -- white, black and glow-in-the-dark. The analysis done for the victim's organization found high levels of two types of asbestos in the white and the glow powder.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Give your child a stick and an empty box for Christmas
It would be a lot safer. Asbestos found in several products:
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6 comments:
Potatoes are also a good present, and when the children tire of them, you can eat them, (the potatoes, not the children!)
(the potatoes, not the children!)
oh no, one must eat the children. well, i don't really know the reference, but in the future it may not be such an immodest proposal.
when i was a kid i had a geology kit with a sliver of asbestos. i felt it hardly qualified as a rock. of course in those days, no one knew.
The Potato Eaters.
My brothers had a plank of asbestos next to a wall heater. We used to play with it, poking our fingers deep into the board and playing with the fibers....
What you don't know will actually kill you someday....(I'm fine, so far btw.)
Wasn't it Johnathan Swift who wrote Gulliver's Travels who made a satire about eating children?
Yes, and today is the anniversary of his birth.
And speaking of asbestos, here's a dumb joke: What do you like bestest? I like asbestos.
An excellent dumb joke if I say so myself!
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