Word: toying
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Parents should immediately remove any toy containing lead, says Dr. Helen Binns, a Chicago pediatrician who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Environmental Health. If parents are concerned or if toys are peeling or chipping, she recommends a blood test. The average lead level in the U.S. is 2 mcg/dL of blood. A level of 10 or higher calls for serious action: health officials will work with parents to reduce exposure and check their child's iron, as being low in iron increases the body's absorption of lead. Some city health departments do this kind of workup...
...LeDouxes have certainly gotten their wake-up call. Jade's blood test was fine, but the couple no longer trusts the toy industry--or federal regulators--to police its products. They're starting a small business called Jade's Toybox to sell carefully vetted, educational toys, mainly made in the U.S. and Europe...
Even if you haven't thought about it yet, U.S. toymakers are so worried about losing the confidence of wary parents this holiday season that the industry has asked the Federal Government to require mandatory safety testing at the toy companies' expense. It's a remarkable admission of just how thoroughly this year's massive recalls of goods from China have shaken up Toyland...
Mattel's recent recalls of more than 19 million toys--including a Sept. 4 warning about lead paint in 675,000 accessories for its iconic Barbie dolls--were the largest in the history of the world's largest toymaker and have put the entire industry on high alert. "This year's recalls were not a happy thing for us," says Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industry Association (TIA), a trade group whose 500 members make about 85% of all the toys sold in the U.S. Even companies that haven't been hit with recalls are scouring their production lines...
...meant to act as a safety valve, a quick way to get potentially dangerous products off store shelves before they do harm. Instead, the wave of recalls this year from China--the source of 80% of the world's playthings--has cast a cloud of suspicion over any toy carrying the MADE IN CHINA label. Keithley met with U.S. toymakers at a safety conference in China in July, and he says they all had one concern: "How can we tighten this...