The government is banning candles that contain lead in their wicks. A consumers’ group says the ban comes decades later than it should have come. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The government is banning candles that contain lead in their wicks. A consumers’ group says the
ban comes decades later than it should have come. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports:
A government agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, says it will ban lead-wick
candles beginning in October of this year. Lead is used in a small percentage of candles to make
the wicks straight. But lead can cause neurological damage, especially for infants and fetuses. In
the 1970s, the candle industry made a voluntary agreement with the government to stop using lead.
Peter Lurie is with the consumers’ organization, the Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.
“When the voluntary agreement failed, we re-petitioned the government and now, 30 years later,
we finally have what we all saw in the first place. In the meantime, of course, thousands of
American consumers have been needlessly exposed to significant levels of lead right there in the
home. And the blame for that can be put squarely at the foot of the industry and also to an agency
that simply didn’t do its job.”
The Consumer Product Safety Commission says it had an agreement with the industry. When it
became clear that the agreement was being violated, it took the action to ban the lead wicks.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.