Consumer Law

Bush may ?fix? the Chinese toy problem by hiring Gail Charnley, who will probably just reassure us that the problem does not exist

By Sam Glover

Gail Charnley is a toxicologist and biochemist, and the head of HealthRisk Strategies, a consulting firm that specializes in risk assessment (apparently for producers of toxic substances). According to the Washington Post, she has opposed stricter emission standards for power plants. She also shilled for the pesticide industry without disclosing a serious conflict of interest–the pesticide industry was paying her bill. And she consulted for the tobacco industry for nearly a decade.

As such she is (obviously) the front-running candidate to replace Nancy Nord as head of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, which is charged with overseeing things like toxic substances in children’s toys from China.

According to former EPA assistant administrator Lynn Goldman, “She’s not thought of as a consumer advocate per se but as someone hired by industry to represent their point of view.”

One wonders whether someone who has devoted her career to advocating on behalf of toxic products like pesticides and tobacco should be leading a regulatory body charged with ensuring that the public is safe from such toxic chemicals in consumer products (like, oh, say, lead in children’s toys).

[via Consumerist, via U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog]

Full post as published by Caveat Emptor on January 28, 2008 (boomark / email).