Toy Safety Not a Trifling Matter, Advocates Say

By FARAH PRINCE

A trashcan filled with popular children’s toys served as the background for a demonstration by mothers and child safety advocates on Tuesday highlighting toxic chemicals used in many toys and other children’s products.

Standing across from the Toy Industry Association headquarters, in the Flatiron District in New York, four mothers and various child advocates held up toys that they charge are using toxic chemicals harmful to children.

Soccer balls, baby dolls, above-ground pools, and Matchbox cars, were all tested and contained toxic levels of chemicals, demonstrators said.  The zipper on a child’s hoodie was also found to have lead after toxicity testing.

After testing a charm bracelet maker for toxicity, the advocates said that the toy contained almost 25 percent cadmium. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has labeled cadmium and its compounds as “known human carcinogens” and in 2011 Congress adopted a standard to limit the amount of cadmium that could be used in toys, though it is not legally binding on manufacturers.

Child advocates, including Cecil Corbin-Mark, Deputy Director of We Act For Environmental Justice, are calling for state laws in addition to the established federal laws, to further regulate toxic chemical standards.

“You shouldn’t need a PhD to buy toys for your kids,” Mark said.

The demonstration comes after the Toy Industry Association, along with a coalition of national trade groups, filed a federal lawsuit against Albany County whose state ban on toxic toys, called Local Law J, they claim is unconstitutional.

Local Law J prohibits he sale of children’s products or children’s apparel containing benzene, lead, mercury, antimony, arsenic, cadmium and cobalt.

“We have always endorsed strict U.S. regulations and continually partner with physicians, scientists, government officials and consumer groups who can help us meaningfully reinforce the safety of toys,” Toy Industry Association President and CEO Carter Keithley said in a press release last week. “Local Law J, however, does nothing to increase product safety – it only hurts consumers as well as small businesses.”

Trisha Sheehan, a regional field manager for Moms Clean Air Force held her five-year-old son Liam as she explained that she didn’t know half of what she knows now when she had her older son, who’s now nine.

“It makes you wonder how many other toys are contaminated with chemicals.”