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Study: Hundreds of toys tainted by lead

By David Freedlander, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | dfreedlander@am-ny.com

December 6, 2007

Kris Kringle may need to add medical gloves and a mask to his Santa suit this holiday season.

A new report by a coalition of environmental groups found that 17 percent of the more than 1,200 popular children's toys it tested contain dangerously high levels of lead and that 35 percent contained trace amounts of the harmful chemical, which could cause serious health problems.

Popular toys found with high levels of lead include a Hannah Montana card game case, a Go Diego Go! Backpack, and Elmo's Take-Along card games and backpack. "Chewing on these toxic toys is like chewing on a toxic lollipop," said Michael Schade of the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice.

Large-scale nationwide toy recalls have shocked parents who learned that some of the most popular toys contained lead paint. Last year alone, Toys "R" Us and Dollar General, two stores that the coalition targeted, pulled more than 1.4 million toys combined from their shelves.

But some say that's not enough.

"Toys "R" Us can stop selling toxic toys right now if they wanted to," said Evan Thies, spokesman for the Working Families Party, which hosted a news conference yesterday in front of the private equity firm KKR, which owns the two stores. "They have proven over and over that they are unwilling to do due diligence to prevent toxic toys from coming on the market."

The group also announced the creation of a Web site, healthytoys.org, where consumers can check on the toxic content of children's toys.

The Toy Industry Association, a trade group, disputed the coalition's findings.

"The Toy Industry Association views the report from healthytoys.org as misleading consumers about potential health hazards," the group said in a statement. "The presence of inaccessible substances in trace amounts does not mean they are harmful."

Meanwhile, toy retailers say that their commitment to safety hasn't wavered.

"We hold the manufacturers of the toys we sell accountable, and we will not tolerate products that do not meet our rigorous safety standards," said Kathleen Waugh, a Toys "R" Us spokeswoman.

And Tawn Earnest, a spokeswoman for Dollar General said: "There is one item on their list that we carry that is packaged in vinyl. ... I think we are conforming to federal regulations on that product."

Toys are regulated by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, which many believe is understaffed and forced to rely on state governments and non-profits for information about high levels of toxins in toys.

"They literally have just a handful of inspectors," said Jeff Gearhart of the Ecology Center, a Michigan-based environmental group spearheading the coalition. "The mandate they are given is overwhelming."

The Consumer Product Safety Commission nevertheless vowed to look into the coalition's findings.

"CPSC in situations such as this often seek to purchase the product ourselves and test them at our laboratory to determine whether our finding are consistent with another group's findings," the agency said in a statement. "Consumers should expect to see more recall of children's products this week and in the week to come."