HealthyToys.org — Why We Need HealthyToys.org

We launched HealthyToys.org because children's products should not contain toxic chemicals! No government agency is adequately assuring that children's products do not contain harmful chemicals. Nor does any agency require labeling or disclosure to inform consumers about the chemical components of children's products. HealthyToys.org was launched to address the failures of our current system to regulate chemicals in products.

HealthyToys.org is a first step in providing parents, grandparents, and others who care about children with the information they need to make better choices when purchasing toys and other children's products.

Why Are Toxic Chemicals in Toys?

There is no pre-market approval process for the use of chemicals in toys or other consumer products to ensure they are safe.

Despite all we know about the dangers of lead and other toxic chemicals, manufacturers are allowed to use them in toys and other children's products when safer alternatives exist.

Weak consumer product safety laws force the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to rely largely on voluntary consumer product standards developed by industry groups. CPSC has little authority and virtually no existing regulations to enforce chemical limits in toys. The Agency has a tiny staff that is inadequate to provide effective oversight.

Current laws and policies regulating toxic chemicals in toys and other products are reactive in nature. The system lacks requirements for toy and consumer product manufacturers to test products for most chemical hazards. This problem is compounded by the lack of toxicity information on most chemicals in commerce.

Our tests, and previous independent tests, have verified that some toys contain chemicals of concern including heavy metals such as lead and cadmium. In nearly all cases, the presence of these toxic chemicals in consumer products is perfectly legal in the United States.

The only U.S. law restricting lead in toys applies only to paint. And, other than that lead paint standard, currently the only standard for a small group of toxic chemicals in children's toys is a voluntary industry standard that cannot be enforced. Children's jewelry is ineffectively regulated, and jewelry with high levels of dangerous chemicals are commonly found on store shelves.

The U.S. government doesn't require full testing of chemicals before they are added to most consumer products, including children's toys. And once they are on the market, the government almost never restricts their use, even in the face of new scientific evidence suggesting a health threat. Because children can be exposed to chemicals from many sources, and because the effects of some chemicals are cumulative, it is important to look at the whole picture concerning chemicals and children's health. The law that's supposed to do this, the Toxic Substances Control Act, is outdated, according to the non-partisan U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). In 2005, the GAO found:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has limited data on existing chemicals including toxicity and exposure information.

EPA lacks data to ensure that potential health and environmental risks of new chemicals are identified.

Chemical companies are not required to develop and submit toxicity information to EPA unless EPA issues a rule.

EPA has used its authority to require testing for fewer than 200 of the 62,000 chemicals in commerce since 1979.

For "new" chemicals, EPA estimates that...only about 15 percent include health or safety test data.

For existing chemicals, only 5 chemical groups out of 62,000 have been restricted by EPA in 29 years

For more information on the lack of government regulation of toxic chemicals in products, please see the following reports:

To send government officials a letter urging them to take action, please see the HealthyToys.org Take Action Page.

For case studies on the chemicals policies of leading companies, see Case Studies of Healthy Business Strategies.

For information on a model chemicals policy for toy companies to adopt, see Healthytoys.org Alternatives Page.