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What’s Safe and What’s Not? How Toys Stack Up
Necessary News
Monday, December 19, 2011
by Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, Executive Director/CEO, Healthy Child Healthy World
Have you checked your toy list twice? Wait, let me rephrase that: Have you check ed the list of what’s in your toys twice? I just discovered the toy database at HealthyStuff.org, which ranks more than 20,000 toys or toy components, organized from “none” to "high” levels for dangerous chemicals.
I checked my list against theirs—my daughter’s coveted Baby Alive is a low, thank goodness—and crossed off a few, noting the irony of Target’s “green baby” shirt weighing in with dangerously high levels of lead and arsenic. Sheesh!
Especially this time of year, it’s worth looking into what you buy. In November, the Illinois PIRG Education Fund released their 26th Annual Survey of Toy Safety report, which found that lead, a known neurotoxin, is still a problem, with several toys exceeding the generous 300ppm standard set by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, and a few more even topping the 40ppm standard set by the American Academy of Pediatrics. (Download the report here.)
A second report, released by the Environmental Health Strategy Center, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and the Safer States coalition, echoed the PIRG study’s finding that the hormone disruptor bisphenol A is still of concern in children’s toys, too.
And we’ve already reported the latest data on buying electronics for kids, which made me think twice about my teenager’s wish list.
What’s a concerned Santa to do? Don’t panic! Yes, shopping smarter takes a little bit more time, but the results—a healthier holiday haul for your kids and a message to manufacturers that better toys sell better, too—are so worth it.
Posted by Naomi Winch on 12/20/2011 at 06:09 PM
Safe wood toys. I have been buying Melissa and Doug’s wood toys for years. They are labeled “solid wood.” Today I found out at a parents support group for autism parents that Melissa and Doug toys are not made of “solid wood” they are made of MDF. MDF is sawdust and resin and gives off formaldehyde fumes for months after purchase. It is also a carcinogen. It turns out Melissa and Doug used to be real wood then moved to China and are now made of MDF. MDF also supposedly meats the definition of “solid wood” here in the USA. Many parents today are well aware of the dangers of chemicals present to our children. There is a huge movement for chemical free toys and products. The website Healthychild.org is a huge advocate. We have gone down to only wooden toys and Melissa and Doug were a huge part of that. I had trust in them. I am returning half my child’s Christmas presents tomorrow… luckily I found out before Christmas and can at least get store credit. I can’t help but to think of all these parents who think they are buying safe high quality toys for their children and here its MDF. I am crushed and disgusted. I know a lot of others will be too. We need to expose these companies….they are deceiving people. I posted on their Facebook sit, wrote the owners an email and my husband tweeted to them…we’ll see what the response is. Thought it would be a eye opening story about wood toys.
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Posted by Layla's Nana on 12/24/2011 at 08:30 AM
This is very concerning to me as a grandparent who has purchased several Melissa and Doug toys for my granddaughter assuming they were safe and well made. The reports I have read on these toys are from 3 items sold only outside of the United States. Can anyone substantiate the previous concern about widespread carcinogens in the Melissa and Doug toys ( preferably before Christmas day which is tomorrow)