But won’t CPSIA ensure that only SAFE products are sold?
No law can guarantee anyone’s safety. Even if followed to the letter in good faith by all manufacturers, however, CPSIA cannot guarantee that all products on the market will meet its standards, let alone that children will not find ingenious ways to hurt themselves with their toys.
Even if followed in good faith, violative products will still end up on the market because CPSIA uses a technique called “sampling.” “Sampling” means that only a sample of the products are tested. If 1 in 100,000 snaps have too high a lead level, and only 5 snaps are tested, the 1 that is too high may not be among the 5 that are tested therefore the only way to make sure everything does not violate CPSIA’s standards is to test everything. The tests for lead destroy the items, however, which would mean that no children’s products would ever make it to market.
