It seems like I am blogging about poisoned Chinese toys almost every day. New recalls and other warnings about the colorful and cheep playthings arriving by the boatload from China come so often they are easy to ignore. Now it seems that one of the biggest poisons is not a prohibited chemical like lead, but a basic ingredient to most of the soft plastic toys. Polyvinyl chloride, the material used in the toys, has additives called phthalates and it’s these that are the problem. Already outlawed in Europe, phthalates have been implicated in the impediment of the production of testosterone and disruption in the sexual development of infant boys.
A disturbing article in The Nation by Marc Schapiro should be a warning to all parents of the possible dangers that are present in just about every toy in the US that is made in China. Don’t look to the Consumer Product Safety Commission to do anything. As I mentioned earlier they have no interest in tightening restrictions and inspections on imported or domestic manufactured goods. Their attitude is “let the market regulate itself”. Just look at the number of recalls and incidents of poisoned food and products lately to see how well that works.
Let the buyer beware?
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