Toxic toys guide released ahead of holidays

Updated Wed. Dec. 5 2007 12:01 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Thirty-five per cent of 1,200 children's products tested by a coalition of environmental health groups were found to contain lead.

A Hannah Montana card game case, a Go Diego Go! backpack and Circo brand shoes all showed excessive lead levels, according to results being released today.

The tests were conducted by the Michigan-based Ecology Center, along with the U.S. Center for Health, Environment and Justice and groups in eight other states.

The Consumer Action Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Toys, available online at www.healthytoys.org, ranks the children's products in terms of levels of lead, cadmium, arsenic and other harmful chemicals.

Tracey Easthope, director of the Ecology Center's Environmental Health Project, said the list is not meant to alarm parents.

"We're just trying to give people information because they haven't had very much except these recall lists," she told The Associated Press.

Seventeen per cent of the products tests had levels of lead above the 600 parts per million U.S. federal standard that would trigger a recall of lead paint, said Easthope.

Jewelry was most likely to contain the high lead levels with 33.5 per cent containing levels above 600 ppm.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a maximum of 40 ppm for lead in children's products.

The case for the Hannah Montana Pop Star Card Game tested at 3,056 ppm.

Bonnie Canner, a spokesperson for Cardinal Industries Inc. which sells the card game, said the product had passed internal tests.

"We test every (product) before it ships numerous times,'' Canner told AP. "We have not tested this product high for lead.''

The First Years brand First Keys, Fisher-Price's Rock-a-Stack and B.R. Bruin's Stacking Cups were among the 20 per cent of toys that contained none of the nine chemicals.

"There's a lot of doom and gloom about lead in the products -- people only hear about the recalls,'' said Jeff Gearhart, the Ecology Center's campaign director. "Companies can make clean products. Our sampling shows that there's no reason to put lead in a product.''

Joan Lawrence, Vice President of Toy Safety at the Toy Industry Association (TIA), said the TIA and its members support limiting accessible lead in products for children.

While she hadn't seen all of the Ecology Center's findings, Lawrence questioned the testing procedures used.

"The mere presence of any substance alone is only half of the answer -- you need to know if it's accessible to the child,'' Lawrence said. "We can't tell that from what I know of the tests that have been done by this group.''

Easthope said the group's tests are simply meant to show what's in the products.

"We're not saying that ... all of it will come out into a child,'' she said. "We're saying it's a concern that so much of these products have these chemicals of concern in them.

"We shouldn't have lead in kids' products. We can make products without lead in them.''

Lead poisoning can lead to irreversible learning disabilities and behavioural problems. It can also prompt seizures, comas and even death.

With files from The Associated Press