children

Regulation of the Day 146: Airplane Child Seats

by Ryan Young on August 13, 2010

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Health and Illness, Mobility, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Regulation of the Day

If you and your small child are flying away on a vacation, most airlines will let the child fly for free. If the child sits in your lap, you don’t have to pay for a second seat. But the National Transportation Safety Board doesn’t think that is safe.  Severe turbulence and rough landings kill a lap-child or two every decade.

That’s why NTSB wants to require all children to sit separately, comfortably ensconced in the child safety seats they use when riding in a car.

The NTSB’s intentions are laudable. They’re trying to make people safer. But intentions are not results. And this rule’s results would be exactly opposite its intentions. It would kill far more people than it would save.

That’s because making parents pay for an extra ticket raises the cost of flying. Many families will choose to drive instead. And remember, driving is much more dangerous than flying. According to CEI’s Sam Kazman, studies show that the extra driving in lieu of flying would kill about 50 people per decade, plus thousands more injuries.

Throwing away 50 lives to save one or two lives is a bad deal. It is literally death by regulation. That’s also why the FAA has repeatedly refused NTSB’s periodic demands to make parents pay more to fly. May they stand firm again.

See also today’s press release from Sam Kazman.

Some U.K. government ads on global warming too scary

by Fran Smith on March 18, 2010 · 1 comment

in Environment, Global Warming, Nanny State, Sanctimony

“Is global warming the new apocalypse?” asks The Times of London in an article focusing on children’s fears about global warming in the context of a scare-mongering U.K. government advertising  campaign to promote climate-change awareness.

Recently the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that some of the campaign’s print ads using nursery rhymes overstated the risks of global warming and were to be banned. But it passed on a TV ad that got almost 1000 complaints that it was too scary.

Check out an earlier CEI post on global warming alarmists’ exploitation of children. Look again at CEI’s response to an earlier apocalyptic video shown at the COP15 Copenhagen meeting on climate change.

Regulation of the Day 117: Hot Dogs

by Ryan Young on February 23, 2010 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Regulation of the Day

Hot dogs are delicious. Especially if you don’t think too hard about what they’re made of. Kids love them. So do adults. With baseball’s spring training already underway, consumption of the national pastime’s unofficial food is set to skyrocket in the coming months.

All is not sunshine, happiness, and home runs, though. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention thinks that hot dogs are dangerous, calling them a “high-risk food.” They are a choking hazard for children.

“We know what shape, sizes and consistencies pose the greatest risk for choking in children and whenever possible food manufacturers should design foods to avoid those characteristics, or redesign existing foods when possible, to change those characteristics to reduce the choking risk,” said Dr. Gary Smith… “Any food that has a cylindrical or round shape poses a risk,” he pointed out.

Dr. Smith also wants mandatory warning label regulations for all hot dog packaging. But nobody seems to be asking: Just how big is the risk here?

According to WebMD, 66 to 77 children under 10 die every year from choking on food in the U.S. That’s out of more than 42,000,000 children under 10, according to my calculations from U.S. Census data.

That means your child’s odds of choking to death on food are about 1 in 545,000. And that’s assuming 77 deaths, the high end of the range. Little Timmy is literally more likely to be struck by lightning (1 in 500,000) than choke to death on a hot dog.

That’s the level of threat we’re dealing with. Treat it that way.

Our children face far greater threats than mere hot dogs. Instead of advocating hot dog safety regulations of dubious benefit, the AAP should rethink its priorities. They should focus on where they can do the most good, instead of where they can do the most nothing.

GW alarmists continue their exploitation of children

by Fran Smith on December 9, 2009 · 1 comment

in Environment, Global Warming, International

This, I think, has to go down as one of the creepiest “editorials” written by global warming alarmists recently. Clive Hamilton, ABC News in Australia’s public “intellectual,” has an open letter to the child of someone who works for the fossil fuel industry. Here are some selections:

“Hi there,

There’s something you need to know about your father.

Your dad’s job is to try to stop the government making laws to reduce Australia’s carbon pollution. He is paid a lot of money to do that by big companies who do not want to own up to the fact that their pollution is changing the world’s climate in very harmful ways.

Because of their pollution, lots of people, mostly poor people, are likely to die. They will die from floods, from diseases like dengue fever, and from starvation when their crops won’t grow anymore.

The big companies are putting their profits before the lives of people. And your dad is helping them.

. . . . .

I am sure it’s hard for you to hear these words, but there is something you can do to help. Why not sit your dad down and have a good talk to him. Tell him you want him to stop helping the big companies that are spoiling the future for you and all the other kids at school. Tell him that the family would rather have less money if he had a different job, one you could be proud of.

Tell him that you know he will feel much happier inside if he is doing something to make Australia and the world a better place, instead of going to work every day to make it a worse one.

Your dad has lost his way, and you might be the only person in the world who can help him find it again. So talk to him.

Yours sincerely”

This is on par with the official opening video for the  COP15 meeting in Copenhagen –  full of nightmare visions of a child caught in a global-warming-produced  catastrophe – producing earthquakes, no less.  (It’s very well-produced, of course.)

Do these people have any idea what their fear-mongering is doing to the minds of children – other than making them terrified, anxious, and sleep-deprived?

Regulation of the Day 72: Brass Toys, Killer of Children

by Ryan Young on November 13, 2009

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Features, Health and Illness, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Regulation of the Day, Zeitgeist

Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. These days, it often also contains up to 2% lead to make it more workable. That means it runs afoul of federal standards for lead in children’s toys.

Fortunately, it turns out that children handling toy cars or other toys with brass parts does not raise their lead concentrations to anywhere near harmful levels. No harm, no foul, right?

Doesn’t matter, say regulators. No exceptions.

Toymakers presumably choose brass because it is cheap, durable, and better than alternative materials. Now they will have to turn to those second-best materials despite no evidence of harm.

There is also one benefit being overlooked. Copper alloys such as brass have natural antibacterial properties, a definite plus when children are involved.

So the next time you see little Johnny crying because he’s sick and his toy car’s axle is broken, you’ll know who to blame.

Regulation of the Day 66: Trick or Treating

by Ryan Young on October 27, 2009

in Features, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Regulation of the Day, Zeitgeist

“Supervisors in Dunkard Township say they are taking the steps for safety reasons,” reads a recent news article describing a new regulation. Regulators often cite safety to explain their latest doings. But it might be a bit of a stretch for justifying what Dunkard Township is doing: banning trick-or-treating.

That’s right. Regulators have banned a staple of childhood. Trick-or-treating is dangerous. Far too dangerous for children. Yet some parents were going to let their kids go anyway. Officials were left with no choice.

The government will hold a four-hour Halloween party to make up for it.