Miscellaneous

Give Your Child the Gift of Poison this X-Mas

As the economy continues its free-fall and we head into the holiday season, we've started to hear a lot about the joys and benefits of cutting back on presents this Christmas. In case you need another reason, NPR reported today on a new study of children's toys that suggests we're quite literally poisoning our kids. The team behind the "Healthy Toys" study tested over 1,500 toys -- including books, stuffed animals, games, action figures, toy jewelry etc -- and found that "one-third of the toys contained significant levels of lead, arsenic and other chemicals. The results showed no consistent correlation between the presence of toxic chemicals in toys and where they were made or how much they cost...The one exception to that rule would be cheap children's jewelry...[which] is five times as likely to have elevated levels of lead in it than any of the other products tested." In addition, NPR reports that "Infant books and bath toys are among other products that received poor scores."

Perhaps most chilling for those who have assumed buying US-made toys might circumvent the problem, this study suggests that provides no protection: "21 percent of toys made in China and 16 percent made elsewhere contained high or moderate levels of lead. Of the U.S.-made toys tested, 35 percent had detectable levels of lead."

Full post as published by Quiz Law on December 04, 2008 (boomark / email).