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Many children's products - including toys, jewelry, clothing and baby bottles - contain harmful chemicals that are linked to reproductive problems, developmental and learning disabilities, hormone problems and cancer.
- Last year, millions of toys were recalled because they contained lead - including Thomas the Tank Engine Dora the Explorer and Elmo.
- Laboratory testing has found that some jewelry for sale here in NYS is almost entirely lead.
- The HealthyToys.org database identified toys that contained lead and PVC (indicating it likely contains phthalates.)
Children are most vulnerable to inhaling or ingesting toxic chemicals:
- Their still-developing systems are less able to handle these chemicals.
- Pound for pound, they eat, drink, and breathe more - and therefore are exposed to higher levels of these chemicals - than adults.
- Babies and young children inevitably put toys into their mouths. Harmful chemicals are directly ingested into their young systems.
There is no adequate system in place in the U.S. to regulate or restrict these chemicals. Policy changes are needed to keep lead and other toxic chemicals out of toys and other children's products.
- The federal law that regulates chemicals used in products does not prevent toxic chemicals such as lead from being used in toys and other children's products.
- Despite the fact that hundreds of toxic chemicals are used to make products that our children put in their mouths, play with, or wear, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)has little authority to
regulate or restrict these chemicals. Following the recent public outrage over lead in toys, as well as contamination of a range of products coming from China, Congress passed and the President signed legislation that strengthens the CPSC and sets more broadly applicable and more strict limits on the use of lead in children's products. This new law also restricts the use of phthalates in young children's products. This is a step in the right direction but in the end only serves as a small bandaid on a much larger problem.
- The Government Accounting Office and legislators now realize that chemical regulation in the US is broken and needs to undergo a fundamental overhaul.
- There is no right to know. Manufacturers are not required to list the chemical components of their products.
- The U.S. is far behind other parts of the world - especially the European Union, which has laws limiting many heavy metals and phthalates for toys and children's products.
New York State must be a leader to protect our children from toxic chemicals whose effects may be felt for their whole lives. Any bill to address this critical issue must:
- Require that children's products sold in New York have the same level of protection as those sold in Europe - end this double-standard
- Limit bisphenol A in children's products due to its estrogenic activity at very low levels - lower than the amounts found in Americans' bodies.
- Create the infrastructure and framework to address the broader problem of known or suspected toxics in children's products.
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Lead is a heavy metal that is best known for its historic use in paint and gasoline, and its removal from those products due to the damage it can do to brain development. Today, we know that lead can affect most organs in the body, not just the brain. We also know that in addition to decreasing IQ, lead can also decrease inhibition. There is no known safe level of lead in our bodies, and once exposed, harm has already been done. Lead is still widely used for a variety of products including:
- jewelry and other metal chains and pendants (such as fobs on bags)
- as a color stabilizer in soft vinyl products such as printed T-shirts and fake leather shoes, doll's clothes, balls and padded bats, and electrical wires (including Christmas tree lights)
- to make rigid vinyl (PVC) hard
- figurines (traditionally, pewter was an alloy - mix- of tin and lead; now it is tin, copper and antimony - another heavy metal)
- painted products, as demonstrated by last year's recalls of Thomas the Tank Engine toys.
For more information, see this HealthyToys fact sheet.
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Phthalates (say "THAL-ates") are used for several purposes: they act as plasticizers (increase the flexibility) for PVC (vinyl) products and nail polishes. They also carry fragrance. Because of this, phthalates can be found in soft baby dolls, raincoats, shampoos, lotions, and nail polishes, to name a few.
When people and animals get phthalates into our bodies, they can act like hormones, leading to a variety of reproductive dysfunctions, primarily in baby boys. For this reason, the European Union has restricted the use of six phthalates in children's products, and the U.S. government followed suit this summer.
Learn more about phthalates and their health impacts here. HealthyToys.org also has a fact sheet on phthalates.
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Resources
HealthyToys.org
Are the toys in your child's toy box dangerous? Find out by searching this interactive site, which includes thousands of products that have been tested for lead and other heavy metals, PVC (which may indicate phthalates) and bromine (which may indicate dangerous flame retardants).
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