CPSIA also confuses chronic and acute lead poisoning. Chronic lead poisoning can have long term consequences, but is relatively easy to treat. That's primarily what we think of as "lead poisoning" and is what taking lead out of gasoline helped fix.
Acute is potentially deadly, extremely rare, and hard to treat.
There's less than 20 deaths each year for both chronic AND acute lead poisoning.
To put that in perspective:
* This is about the same chance of dying by rattlesnake bite
* Same chance as dying in a horseback riding accident
* you're half again as likely to be killed by a pet dog
* You're twice as likely to die from a bee sting as lead poisoning
* you're six times as likely to die in a collision with a deer
* you're 15 times as likely to die in a farm machinery accident
* you're around 90 times more likely to die in a gun accident (nevermind being purposely shot, that's just accidental)
* 150 times more likely to choke to death on something
* 200 times more likely to drown (including pools AND bathtubs)
* 20,000 times more likely to die in a car wreck
The number of car wrecks total is around equal to the number of people that test positive for any level of mild to severe chronic lead poisoning.
CPSIA basically took one case of acute lead poisoning and confused it with the incidence of chronic lead poisoning and treated them as both equally bad. Shows us our idea of risk assessment is waaaaaaay off.
