Along with implementing the overreaching Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s other priority this year has been addressing public complaints about contaminated Chinese drywall. The housing boom and post-Katrina reconstruction led to a shortage of domestic drywall, with imports of the Chinese product filling the gap. But the Chinese drywall has reportedly caused health problems in the people who live or work in the buildings — especially across southern states where the product is more prevalent.

On Thursday, the CPSC and other federal agencies released the initial results of a round of tests on domestic and imported drywall. The key findings:

The study found that sulfur gases were either not present or were present in only limited or occasional concentrations inside the homes, and only when outdoor levels of sulfur compounds in the air were elevated.

The indoor air study did lead to a preliminary finding of detectable concentrations of two known irritant compounds, called acetaldehyde and formaldehyde. These irritant compounds were detected in homes both with and without Chinese drywall, and at concentrations that could worsen conditions such as asthma in sensitive populations, when air conditioners were not working or turned off. The levels of formaldehyde were not unusual for new homes and were higher in homes where air conditioners were not working or turned off.

Although formaldehyde was found, when the air conditioning was turned on, it was not at levels that have been found to cause health symptoms.

The CPSC is quick to emphasize that these are only initial findings, reports continue to come in, and there is much more work to do. The commission has developed a good website with resources, the Drywall Information Center.

For now, we’ll say Chairman Inez Tenenbaum delivered good remarks in Beijing on Monday at the U.S.-China Consumer Product Safety Summit:

The seriousness of this issue can not be underestimated. I appeal to companies in the Chinese drywall supply chain to examine carefully their responsibilities to U.S. consumers who are suffering from problems in their homes and to do what is fair and just in each case, if their products are involved and I want to underscore if their products are involved.

That’s right. Foreign manufacturers need to accept responsibility for their products.

News coverage…

• Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Stops Short of Faulting Drywall“
• McClatchy-Tribune News Services, “Feds: No link yet between drywall, health problems“
• Associated Press, “US safety chief says China helping on drywall“
• Wall Street Journal “China Real Time Report” blog, “Drywall Lesson: Caveat Emptor,” which offers the opinion that Tenenbaum “dodged” tougher questions on drywall in her Beijing press event.

Hearing for Commerce nominee Hightower now over.

Prepared statements from CPSC nominees:

Mr. Robert S. Adler

Ms. Anne M. Northup

We’ve been Tweating the hearing @NAM_Shopfloor

Hardly any news so far, though, except for Sen. Hutchison indicating the expectation is that the Commerce Committee will mark up the nominees quickly and the Senate will vote on confirmation by the end of the week.

UPDATE (11:45 a.m.): The hearing adjourns. Senators are feeling time pressure, and Adler and Northup are both solid nominees, so Chairman Pryor and committee members decided not to belabor the issue. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-MO), who chaired the hearing, also indicted a quick vote on confirmation.

Adler was clearly more knowledgeable than Northup about the CPSC, but that’s understandable given his agency and Capitol Hill experience. His most welcome comment came in a response to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s inquiry about stays of enforcement, which he said he was not a fan of. In some cases they are too restrictive for “virtuous companies” but too loose for the “unvirtuous.” Adler expressed the willingness to look through the issues and say that CPSC may need to come to Congress for discretion, i.e., statutory changes to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

Hutchison also asked the nominees to come back with “corrections” for Congress, and Northup and Adler agreed.

Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) asked about contaminated Chinese drywall, which Northup saw as a major problem. (Contaminated dry-wall is a high-interest topic in the South and among trial lawyers.)

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) mentioned her home-state snowmobile companies, Polaris and Arctic Cat, and said referring to the lead standards said Congress did not expect the CPSIA to affect ATV sales as it did. (Children’s models were effectively banned.) She also urged the nominees to work with the Handmade Toy Alliance, also based in Minnesota, which has protested the CPSIA’s excesses, including the testing requirements that threaten small toymakers.

The one statement we did not hear: “I know the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act has put people out of business…”

UPDATE (1:35 p.m.): Should have noted that Sen. Hutchison also pointed to inconsistencies and enforcement by state attorneys general as subject worthy of concern. (Hat tip to Jen at Way to Bow.)

USA Today’s lead page one story today is “Industry donates to drug plan foes” focusing on the pharmaceutical industry. The sidebar looks at a related issue of generic pharmaceuticals competing with “biologic” drugs, “Industry donates to drug plan foes.”

Meanwhile, at The Examiner, columnist Tim Carney submits yet another dispatch about big business running the country, “How industry kidnapped Obama’s health ‘reform’.”

Well, good. Report those stories. The same stories…over and over…ad nauseum…refreshing them every quarter when new lobbying or campaign contribution reports are out.

But maybe there’s a different and equally important story to tell. Yes, it’s the one we’ve been harping on for three weeks now, but it’s valid and woefully underreported: the role of the trial attorneys in blocking medical malpractice reform or federal liability limits.

To repeat ourselves (over and over), we’ve yet to see any major newspaper or wire service or broadcast outlet report on the gathering of thousands of trial lawyers in San Francisco at the American Association for Justice’s summer convention, which ends today. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a key player in the Congressional health care debate, addressed a powerful special interest and political constituency, and no mainstream media cared. (With apologies to LegalNewsline.) The peripatetic Tim Kaine lights down in San Francisco for political purposes and nada.

So here’s a new angle. On September 24-25 the AAJ is holding a seminar and Continuing Legal Education session at The Venetian in Las Vegas, “Litigating Toxic Tort, Pharmaceutical, and Medical Device Cases Seminar.” It’s two days in which attorneys will be trained how to make the U.S. health care system more expensive. And they get CLE credit for it!

Just consider the morning session, 8:30 a.m. to noon, as listed on the agenda, which includes sessions on the hot new topic of Chinese drywall, discovery in the post-Levine world — that is, the opportunity for more lawsuits against drugmakers in state instead of federal courts — and being prepared when lawyers try to dismiss personal injury suits because of statutes of limitation or assumed risk.

The two-day schedule also includes sessions on how to more effectively sue the manufacturers of drugs and devices.

The list of faculty is revealing too, including an attorney who sued pharmaceutical companies on behalf of the attorney general of West Virginia, and a university research fellow, litigator and former staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Indeed, there’s a list of 13 attorneys who, if they succeed in their efforts and inculcating the session’s students, will drive up the costs of health care in America.

There’s big money being spent, political influence being wielded, and our nation’s health care costs being driven through the roof while medical innovation is inhibited. So here’s a story idea: “Personal injury lawyers work to drive up health care costs.”

It’s a reasonable expection, that journalists covering the health care beat should apply the same kind of scrutiny to the plaintiffs’ bar as they do to the pharmaceutical, hospital and insurance industries. How about it, USA Today? Page one, above the fold…

Not sure it’s the “truth” per se, but the short piece from Popular Mechanics is a good primer on the imported drywall and possible contamination by strontium sulfide. Excerpt:

Researchers say the evidence isn’t conclusive—and point out that not all Chinese drywall is suspect. However, a number of class-action lawsuits have been filed against plasterboard manufacturers and others. Builder Lennar Corporation has identified dozens of houses containing potentially harmful drywall, and has pledged to fund the only known remedy: Removing the drywall, replacing damaged plumbing and wiring and relocating homeowners until new materials are installed. In a sure sign that fear is spreading, con men have started hawking bogus test kits and remedies such as chemical sprays and ozone generators.

A quibble:

Popular Mechanics: Evidence isn’t conclusive. However, class-action lawsuits have been filed.

Our version: Evidence isn’t conclusive. Therefore, class-action lawsuits have been filed.

The Senate Commerce Committee, consumer protection subcommittee, held a hearing last week on Chinese drywall. Statements and testimony are available here.