Ten percent of toys unsafe

From our friend David Goldstein [1] of the Horse's Ass [2] blog:

Darcy Burner held a series of local events over the weekend where families could bring toys and other children’s products for free lead testing. Well, the results are in, and of the 479 items tested, 56 tested positive for lead, 47 above the 40 parts per million maximum recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Nine additional items tested positive for cadmium, another toxic element....

So, how dangerous are these toys? Many of the items tested contained lead far above safe levels:

A red plastic roof piece from a Lincoln Logs set tested at 1488 parts per million for lead (or 37 times the AAP standard). A small plastic Fisher Price Sesame Street Bert figure tested at 5346 ppm (or 133 times the standard). A Tinkerbell pink rolling backpack tested at 533 ppm for lead, while a Cinderella princess backpack tested at 474 ppm. A Winnie the Pooh placemat contained 985 ppm.

The highest lead level was found was in a Fisher Price Flip Track crane from a plastic train set that was owned by Burner’s own 5 year-old son, which tested at 10,600 ppm, or 265 times the AAP standard.

Cooler-style lunchboxes and soft coolers tended to have high levels of lead or cadmium, as did all of the children’s character placemats tested, including Dora, Spiderman and Winnie the Pooh. Chinese manufacturers tend to add lead and cadmium to vinyl (PVC) to increase durability, and while the CPSC argues such products are safe because the vinyl tends not to deteriorate during normal use, any parent who sees the wear and tear their own child puts on their lunchbox knows otherwise.

Why all the fuss? It's not like kids are going to put anything from those lunchboxes in their mouths or anything...