The Season To Be Wary- Shopping For Safe Toys

Newsweek
By Linda Stern

It’s a tough year to be a toy-buying parent. In recent months, almost 25 million mostly Chinese-made toys have been recalled because they have dangerous amounts of lead or magnets—which can cause intestinal damage when swallowed—in them. Then there were Aqua Dots, pulled when it was discovered that the popular beads were coated with a toxic chemical that metabolizes into gamma hydroxy butyrate, or GHB—the date-rape drug. Last week California filed suit against 20 toy companies, alleging that they had knowingly exposed kids to unlawful levels of lead.

The toy industry says it has learned its lesson, is retesting toys and stepping up its quality control. “This will probably wind up being the safest holiday ever for toys,” says Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industry Association. “There’s every reason for consumers to be confident.” Possibly. But as late as mid-November, the Center for Environmental Health (cehca.org) in California was finding illegally high levels of lead in toys that were on the shelves. Because of globalization, environmental problems from anywhere in the world can send dangerous products to the neighborhood store. Here’s how to shop safely.

Know your poisons. When lead is ingested or inhaled, it can cause neurological problems and interfere with brain development. The American Academy of Pediatrics maintains that there is no safe level of lead in the bloodstream. It’s been banned in toy paint in the United States since 1978, but has been coming into the country on imported toys. Lead is still permitted in U.S. toys as an additive to plastics, where it is not as accessible, but parents of teething toddlers should go the extra mile and stick with toys made of natural materials like wood and cotton terry cloth or those made by manufacturers who don’t use lead in their plastics—a call to the toy company should yield this information. Another group of chemicals, called phthalates, are legally used in soft vinyl toys. They are more controversial than lead, because experts disagree about their dangers, but they are banned in Europe and, starting in 2009, in California. To avoid phthalates, shop for toys made of latex or silicon or that claim to be “PVC free” on their tags.

Clean out the toy box. Little children put toys in their mouths an average of 20 times an hour, so be extra-vigilant if you have teething babies or toddlers in the house, says Dr. Dana Best, a pedia-trician with the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington. If your toddler has a toy that she’s always chewing, check its pedigree with the manufacturer and against the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recall list at cpsc.gov, and if you’re still not sure, throw it away. Get rid of any toys that are flaking, chipped or breaking down.

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