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High lead levels found in popular holiday toys
How safe are the toys on your holiday shopping list?
Wed, Nov 18 2009 at 1:40 PM
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The Center for Environmental Health has recently announced that many popular toys (some carrying the Barbie and Disney logos) have dangerously high levels of lead in them.
Wait ... didn't we already hear this story? No, you're not experiencing a case of déjà vu. Two years ago at this time, parents were terrified by toy recalls and toy testing that revealed high levels of lead in many popular holiday toys. And here we are, smack dab in the middle of the holiday shopping season, it looks like lead-based toys are once again lining store shelves.
The Center for Environmental Health tested about 250 children's products bought at major retailers and found lead levels that exceeded federal limits in seven of them. Lead can cause irreversible brain damage and other neurological disorders in children.
Among those toys found with high lead levels: a Barbie Bike Flair Accessory Kit and a Disney Tinkerbell Water Lily necklace. The group said it also found excessive lead in a Dora the Explorer Activity Tote, two pairs of children's shoes, a boys belt and a kids' poncho.
The findings released this week come about a year after a product safety law (CPSIA) that ushered in strict limits on the amounts of lead and chemicals allowed in products made for children 12 years and younger. Congress passed the law after a slew of recalls of lead-tainted toys in 2007, including several Mattel-related recalls that involved more than 2 million toys.
Photo: Barbie Bike Flair Accessory Kit by the Center for Environmental Health.
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I wonder if the lead levels were dangerously high last year or are they only dangerously high because of the CPSIA? Whose marker for dangerously high were they using? Would the child have to eat the whole Barbie Bike Flair Acessory kit for it to be a problem? Oh, wait. It really doesn't matter. The parents can't buy the bike that the Flair kit goes on anyway. The bike has dangerously high levels of lead in it!