Well-played, Greenpeace. Well-played.



(Seriously. Everybody should be taking notes on this.)

Discount sellers have been waging war against manufacturers' ability to set minimum advertised prices (MAP) for their products, and Baby Bargains reports today that the bill to ban it, the Discount Pricing Consumer Protection Act of 2009, has made it out of committee and will head to a house vote. Companies that currently impose MAP pricing on retailers include Britax, Medela, KidCo, Peg Perego, and many other higher-end children's product companies (KidCo, which makes great baby gate systems and also PeaPod travel beds, forced up their retail prices using a MAP on January 1). Baby Bargains' Denise and Alan Fields write:

To supporters, MAP helps level the playing field between retailers and online discounters. Without MAP, retailers complain they wouldn't be able to stock products that are heavily discounted online. And then consumers won't have the opportunity to see these products in person, as they would only be sold online. Critics point out this is simply price fixing and an effort to stop online discounting, to fatten the margins of retailers. [Link]

Consumers have been abandoning BPA's miracle plastic, polycarbonate, by the droves, the biggest U.S. baby bottle manufacturers have promised to stop using it, and cities, counties, and states have begun passing bans (various NY counties; Minnesota; and now Chicago). But polycarbonate is just the tip of a great big BPA iceberg, as we've been reporting for a while now. A recent study suggests that BPA leaches from polycarbonate bottles not only when heated, as the baby bottle makers used to be so fond of assuring us, but even, and quite floridly, in cases when bottles are not used for hot liquids or washed in dishwashers. (Incidentally, we're guessing that the BPA iceberg itself is, in fact, the tip of another iceberg... and yes, it's icebergs all the way down.)

Consumers finally seem prepared to screw this logic to the sticking place. If BPA in polycarbonate is bad, then it must also be bad in epoxy resins in infant feeding utensils, infant formula packaging, baby food jars, canned goods, and even paper packaging. (You know the slick surfaces of those frozen entree containers? We (and others) can't say much about any particular paper food packaging, but I can guarantee you some of it uses BPA.) Connecticut looks ready to ban BPA in food packaging, with legislation on the governor's desk that would ban it by 2011 and require warning labels beforehand. The U.S. Congress is considering a federal ban on BPA in food packaging, baby bottles, and cups as well.

While the baby bottle and sports bottle companies have been able to shift gears without too much trouble, food packagers don't have it so easy. Some alternatives exist, but some foods pose more of a risk than others, implementation of any change would be costly, and any misstep could open a company to new liability if materials proved less reliable under the icky real-world stresses canned food can go through in its long journey from factory to table. Naturally, none of these companies were studying or investing in these alternatives when this issue was sitting on the burner on high, because hey, the water was kinda nice. Now that the issue is actually boiling over, and moms across America are buying frozen or fresh produce instead of the suddenly-sketchy canned stuff, food packagers are getting concerned. And what better way to communicate that concern, the North American Metal Packaging Alliance has sagely reasoned, than with a fear-mongering anti-anti-BPA PR campaign?

Some guilty soul in the industry slipped a reporter at the Washington Post the notes from an industry meeting outlining their planned response to the BPA-in-food-packaging crisis. Listen up, moms:

The notes said the executives are particularly concerned about the views of young mothers, who often make purchasing decisions for households and who are most likely to be focused on health concerns.

Those at the meeting held at the Cosmos Club "believe a balance of legislative and grassroots outreach [to mothers 21 to 35 years old and students] is imperative to the stability of their industry; however, the association members continue to struggle to initiate research and develop a clear-cut plan to defend their industry," an unidentified participant wrote.

Industry representatives weighed a range of ideas, including "using fear tactics [e.g. "Do you want to have access to baby food anymore?" as well as giving control back to consumers (e.g. you have a choice between the more expensive product that is frozen or fresh or foods packaged in cans) as ways to dissuade people from choosing BPA-free packaging," the notes said.

The attendees estimated it would cost $500,000 to craft a message for a public relations campaign, according to the notes. "Their 'holy grail' spokesperson would be a 'pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA,'" the notes said. [Link]

That's $500K for "crafting a message," folks. How much will the industry spend to insult us with it in print, on television, and online?

And how much would it cost to develop and roll out a viable alternative - one which was cleared in advance of any estrogenic activity, so Coca-Cola, Campbell's, and Gerber knew they were minimizing the chances of another issue like this cropping up three or five more years down the road?

I think my favorite part is where the Post quotes the note as saying industry leaders are primarily interested in "legislative battles and befriending people that are able to manipulate the legislative process." I'm pretty sure you wouldn't see such bald language even in the most nefarious progressive circles. Read the article for much more.

If you haven't yet read Fast Company's article about the history of the chemical industry's efforts to resist BPA regulation, you should check it out. It's a long piece, so I just got around to reading it. But it offers great detail on the conflicts of interest and fudged studies that have plagued the industry side of this issue. It's also great at giving you a sense of how carefully studies must be scrutinized for their validity, and why repeatable results are so important in scientific research. Here's just one example from the article:

The largest and most influential industry studies have been conducted by Rochelle Tyl of the Research Triangle Institute, a private lab in North Carolina. Tyl's first BPA study, published in 2002 at a cost that Tyl puts at around $2 million (also funded by the Society of the Plastics Industry), examined three generations of rats and found no adverse effects at low doses. Yet here, too, there are questions of protocol. The study used a rat strain called the CD Sprague-Dawley, which has been shown to be insensitive to synthetic estrogens like BPA. (A Japanese study found that the CD Sprague-Dawley rat can withstand a dose of synthetic estrogen more than 100 times greater than what a female human can tolerate.) As of early 2007, of the 29 studies that have shown no harm due to BPA, 13 have used the CD Sprague-Dawley rat. Nonetheless, when the FDA declared BPA "safe" this fall, it relied almost exclusively on Tyl's work -- a shortcoming that the agency's science board publicly criticized in October.

It's cases like this that are worth keeping in mind whenever you hear about a single, groundbreaking study that poses an emergency for everyone. Sometimes the worrying results of a single study are enough to change our behavior, particularly if it is published in a rigorously peer-reviewed and highly respected journal, but an accumulation of evidence validated by other researchers is what good science really demands.

Read the full story here.

Members of the House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce formally submitted a letter to chair Henry Waxman today requesting that the committee hold a hearing to discuss issues surrounding all the folks the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act (as currently written) will put out of business. (Hat tip to Liz at Cool Mom Picks for putting it on our radar!) Read the letter below, or download it yourself in PDF form, but here's the real meat of it:

The emails, letters, and phone calls we have received from constituents about the unintended consequences of certain provisions and deadlines in CPSC's implementation plan now number in the thousands. Many involved in CPSIA's creation were passionate to improve the safty of our children's products, but surely no one expected or wanted to drive thousands of home-based and small businesses out of operation and turn thousands of Americans into surprise victims of a brutal recession. For example, it seems obvious to us tha t the hand-knitted sweaters and homemade hair bows sold by artisans on eBay are highly unlikely to endanger children's health.

The situation is urgent. On February 10, in less than three weeks, these tiny toy producers will be out of business. Their products, regardless of innocence and safety, will have to be removed from store shelves and the websites of their home businesses.

You have urged the Commission to deal with the problem by issuing new guidance. Regrettably, the kind of modifications to existing requrements needed to prevent a broad collapse of home-based businesses may take months to achieve. We are advised that even if the CPSC devotes full staff attention and moves at the most expeditious speed, it will be unable [to] issue the necessary guidance prior to February 10 without violating Federal rulemaking requirements.

Meanwhile, there is no evidence that these micro-producers are doing anything wrong or endangering anyone, and we believe there is no reasonfor them to suffer a dvasating economic blow simply because their government cannot find a way to help in time.

Here's hoping that Waxman takes their call for action seriously. Honestly, the alternative is so draconian, we're quite hopeful he will. And it gets better - also today, Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, sent out notice to federal agencies that all pending Bush regulations will be placed on hold pending executive review. It's unclear to us exactly what this means, the term "pending" specifically, but it's another sign that there may be some movement on this issue, and quickly.

First, kudos to Houston's ABC affiliate (KTRK). They interviewed a local crafter who runs a kids' clothing boutique that will close down on February 10, and she walked through all of the elements that will have to be tested on individual handmade garments to be in compliance with the law - upwards of ten different parts of a single garment, of which there are dozens if not hundreds in her shop. I spoke to her on the phone an hour ago and she noted that the documentation alone would make running a shop like hers impossible. She is among the many (us included) who find it ridiculous that individual elements - thread, elastic, fabrics - must each be tested in each end product, not because they might be unsafe individually (for then crafters could simply purchase materials that had already been certified) but because they might form a harmful substance, or rise above prohibited levels, only in combination. This is not real-world legislation. Here's her blog - if you're a crafter making children's products in the Houston or Austin area, you should get in touch with her.

Second, outgoing CPSC Public Affairs Director Julie Vallese held a pretty odd sit-down with Baltimore's NBC affiliate, WBAL in which she managed to say with a relatively straight face that the nation's thrift store and consignment shop owners had no obligation to test products, but that they should make "a business decision" and have "confidence" that the products they are selling meet the new laws, because if they are caught selling ones that aren't, they get a big fat fine (last I heard was $100,000, but she didn't say). I can only think of one "business decision" to make under such a business arrangement. Thanks to SaveKidsResale alerting us to this arresting, if maddening, interview. Heckuva job managing public information on that CPSIA bit, Julie. Heckuva job.

Read more about this issue in our predictions for the CPSIA's effect on the children's product industry.