>> A number of different harmful chemicals and toxic components have been found in toys and
canned food in a number of US discount stores that you might well shop at their very common
stores like dollar tree and five below. We'll get to that. Let's show you some of the products that
were found to have these harmful chemicals you have Minnie Mouse kids safe headphones.
Disney trying to corrupt our youth as they say anyway, you've got shredded white chicken,
pop weaver, extra butter popcorn. God, I love microwave popcorn. I'm gonna have to
look into this. But there's a very good chance that you've shopped at one of these stores.
Dollar tree, family dollar 99 cent only stores five below dollar General.
I know that these are common around the and what this is about is that researchers looked into
hundreds of different products and tried to find what potentially harmful chemicals
they might have in them. So, they looked at five different retailers, they look for
things like led by products of plastic highlights, which we've talked about on the show before.
They found them in 120 of 226 products that is more than half had at least one chemical
of concern as it's called. That includes baby toys, the aforementioned disney themed
headphones, they found lead and things like things that theoretically can contribute to
higher levels of cancer, specifically in childhood products like fake teeth.
Had Pvcs in endocrine disrupting chemicals, things that can harm
reproductive and cognitive development and all of these of course are not good to consume
or touch at any point in your life. But particularly for kids,
these are common cheap products that many people might be consuming more gun.
What do you think about this? >> Yeah. You know, and and in a
lot of these companies enter markets and then push out some smaller
grocery stores that might be available or independently owned grocery stores and
then they have, they become a monopolist of the area. And then what the monopolists do?
Will they prey on their customers and their competitors? And this is an example of that.
I mean putting people and these are usually in areas with folks earning lower incomes,
less healthy products, dangerous chemical products. I mean,, this is why we need to have
stronger enforcement of our antitrust laws and increased competition so that we can push
these types of players out of the market and have healthy products available for everyone.
>> Exactly, yeah. Yeah. And you can have multiple layers of regulations
on the actual products themselves to make sure that these harmful chemicals and toxic
things aren't in there in the first place, but that also that you are not effectively
required to shop here. Like to jump ahead a little bit, apologies to the director.
I might jump around. There are more dollar stores in the US than Walmarts right now,
and as Morgan was alluding to, they have a similar sort of effect on the local landscape of companies
they're there and they push out mom and pop shops, which might have less unified products.
They're generally concentrated in low income areas and communities of color.
They remain an affordable option specifically for groceries and household items. So, for some people
you might get your food from one of these stores rather than from a grocery store or grocery stores
aren't available or if this is cheaper and so it's bad no matter who is consuming these products.
But the fact that the lower on the social economic ladder, you might be,
the more likely it is that you'll consume these things and that could have a life long deleterious
effect on your children's health. That is really disgusting. And this deserves a greater look,
great job by the scientists and places like the Guardian that are reporting on this.
But this deserves a government level of regulation actually looking at this
and making sure that something is done. >> Yeah. Yeah, I know. And I just say,
I mean, sometimes a lot of people ask me like, what can be done at the federal level. And
it's not always the most, you know, innovative or sexy idea to be just doing investigations
and enforcing the law, but that's a lot of what the federal government should be doing.
And we've had lapses, you know, at times. And some of that regulation and this clearly is.
I agree a call for further investigation. >> I agree. Squad. Get on it. Let's get let's
get a look at this. Let's let's get the CEO of Dollar General to testify before congress.
Katie Porter dispatched the White Board.