You may remember that a child’s plaything or two has been recalled for high lead levels recently — and by a plaything or two, we mean millions. So it’s a tad troubling that in testing 1,268 toys, the Michigan-based Ecology Center found that 35 percent contained lead, mercury, cadmium, and/or arsenic — and only 23 of the toxic toys had been recalled. Seventeen percent of the tested toys exceeded the federal recall standard for lead, including a Hannah Montana card-game case with five times the safe lead level. “Plenty of toys don’t have these chemicals in them,” says the Ecology Center’s Tracey Easthope. “This is a problem we can solve and it’s a problem we should not have. It’s something parents should not have to worry about.” Perturbed parents can check out the Ecology Center’s full searchable results of the testing at HealthyToys.org.
