Consumer Safety

Seems to me a smart campaign issue for a Democrat to pick up would be consumer product safey particularly with articles like this: (on top of all the Chinese recalls)

Walter E. Friedel’s plans to waterproof the tile floors of his hot tub room using Stand ’n Seal, a do-it-yourself product sold at his local Home Depot, promised to be a quick weekend project, one he could wrap up in time to catch the Giants football game on a Sunday afternoon.

The product offered “a revolutionary fast way” to seal grout around tiles and, its label boasted, any extra spray would “evaporate harmlessly.”

“It sounds like no big deal,” Dr. Friedel said, looking back.

But instead of watching football that afternoon, Dr. Friedel, a 63-year-old physician, ended up being rushed to the hospital, where he would spend four days in intensive care, gasping for air, his lungs chemically inflamed.

Dr. Friedel was the latest victim of a product whose dangers had become known months earlier to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the companies that made and sold it. Before Dr. Friedel bought Stand ’n Seal, at least 80 people had been sickened using it, two of them fatally.

Court documents show that, as the case unfolded, the product’s maker, BRTT, appeared at times to be more concerned with protecting its bottom line than with taking steps to ensure that the hazard was removed. That meant that hazardous cans of Stand ’n Seal remained on the shelves for more than a year after the 2005 recall.

Now why should this be championed by a Democrat and not a Republican since this seems to be an area of good governance rather then politics, well let say it all about mindset:

Senator McCaskill repeatedly asks Ms. Nord why she has not, to date, asked for more money for her agency, the underfunded, dilapidated and ineffectual state of which was exposed in a similar senate hearing last month; highlights included the introduction to the culture of a new and unfortunately-named martyr of sorts--Bob, the Small Parts Guy--as well as this picture of the CPSC Toy Testing lab on display:

Ms. Nord repeats her non-answer with robotic consistency and an oddly fixed gaze to match:

"If you gave us more money, we would spend more money."