Groups rate 1,200 toys’ safety, post results online

WASHINGTON – Parents worried about toy safety after a record year of recalls can now look through a list of more than 1,200 items that a coalition of public interest groups has tested for lead and other harmful chemicals, although toy industry officials say that the list may cause unnecessary alarm.

The coalition, led by the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., found more than 200 items that contained unsafe levels of lead, as well as hundreds of others that had little or no lead. The results are scheduled to be released today in an online database at www.healthytoys.org.

“We are trying to help people make good decisions for products they might want to avoid and show them what are some products that test clean,” Ecology Center campaign director Jeff Gearhart said.

Type in “Dora,” and several varieties of toys appear. Click on a specific toy, and product ratings based on test results for lead, cadmium, chlorine, arsenic and mercury will pop up. The ratings range from low to high risk. A primer on the hazards of each substance and a breakdown of which components were tested lets consumers evaluate the risk. Chlorine, for example, was sometimes found only in the packaging and not in the toy itself.

The highest concentrations of lead, which has been linked to behavioral problems and decreases in IQ points, were found in jewelry. More then 33 percent of the 504 pieces of jewelry tested contained lead at levels greater than 600 parts per million – an amount that would trigger further testing by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Products made of soft plastic also dominated the list of toys with high levels of lead. Lead is sometimes added to vinyl as a stabilizer.

The groups alerted the CPSC to violations of federal paint standards, and 26 items have been recalled since the groups gathered their samples, Gearhart said.

CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson said more lead-related recalls are expected this week, and the groups’ findings will be reviewed. “We will take seriously reports and findings that come into us from state agencies and outside consumer groups,” he said.

Joan Lawrence, vice president of standards and government relations for the Toy Industry Association, said that while the groups used state-of-the art technology to detect lead, they were presenting “scary information to parents without context.”

“They can’t tell you whether a child will be exposed (to a chemical),” she said.