To the Editor:

“On Family Farms, Little Hands Steer Big Machines” (news article, Jan. 29), about the plight of children working in agriculture and the serious injuries they suffer driving heavy equipment, was heart-rending.

Imagine the equivalent behavior of grade-school children driving trucks on the open road among the rest of us. It would be intolerable. Safety standards barring children from engaging in hazardous activities on the farm are 40 years old.

An effort by the Obama administration to update them was snuffed out by House conservatives, who never saw a regulation they liked. The proposal would have restricted the operation of heavy equipment, protected migrant teenagers from picking tobacco unprotected, and prohibited the practice of sending youngsters into silos to break up clumps of grain with their feet, risking suffocation if they slip.

We are back to the vicious cycle of a laissez-faire market and human suffering on a grand scale. But this time, rebuilding government safety rules will be a long and unnecessary slog.