Articles labeled: lead paint

Ty, Inc., famous as the maker of the huge hit Beanie Babies, is refusing to pull its doll, Jammin’ Jenna, from shelves despite being notified that the doll contains high amounts of lead. They’ve stopped selling new ones, but as for the ones still sitting in stores, you’re SOL. Why? Nobody will say.

Despite its concern with Party City, the attorney general’s office said it is most troubled with Ty Inc. over its Jammin’ Jenna, one of several dolls in the Ty Girlz product line.

“They sell very popular products that children love. It would be our expectation that they would step up and do what they can to make sure their products don’t contain lead,” said Cara Smith, deputy chief of staff to Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan.

Scott Wehrs, Ty’s chief operating officer, declined to comment for this article.

Last fall, the Tribune tested the red vinyl shoes on three Jammin’ Jenna dolls, and all three exceeded Illinois lead limits. (The newspaper also tested several other dolls in the Ty Girlz line, but those showed no detectable amounts of lead.)

A preschool girl was found to have lead levels at one of the highest known levels without succumbing to death. It was found that the little girl was eating paint chips off a front porch and carpeting from paint chips that fell on the floor.

The little girl is now undergoing very painful therapy and her prognosis is unclear.

What is most suprising, even after laws have long been established about the use of non-lead paint — contained lead paint is not illegal. Contained lead paint is also harmless, so long as a person is not knawing or eating the paint as an appetizer. This mother has decided to become an activist and blame our government for her child’s non-supervision.

How was it that this little girl was able to eat so much paint off the front porch and her mother never even noticed? Why are there paint chips on the carpeting, big enough to be noticed and eaten and where is any kind of supervision of this child and now the mother wants to blame the government for failing to babysit???

How about this?…YOU screwed up! How about being angry with yourself? It is not the governments job to make sure your house is clean and that your daughter is not left unattended to eat friggin’ paint chips off the front porch. Even if they weren’t lead laiden, it’s not something a kid should be left to do!

But beyond that, predictions about Amanda are difficult — the only case with such high lead levels showed up in February 2006 in Minnesota, when a 4-year-old boy swallowed a lead charm that came with a pair of Reebok sneakers. He was hospitalized with a lead level of 180 ug/dL and died four days later.

Taylor, meanwhile, has become a reluctant activist, lobbying Congress to get rid of lead in aging housing. “Right now I’m an angry mom,” Taylor says. “If you get enough angry moms together, something’s going to change.”