Oct. 18, 2007

Attention parents: Be careful when you buy cheap toy jewelry at dollar stores for your children. It may have dangerous levels of lead.

Much of the national attention has been to the level of lead in Chinese-made toys. This summer, many of these products were recalled by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

At the time of those recalls, County Executive Andy Spano directed the Department of Consumer Protection to visit local stores to make sure the recalled products were removed from the shelves. Once that was done, he decided to go a step further and look at imported products that were not the subject of recalls.
“I was very concerned that toy jewelry that kids play with also could have dangerous levels of lead, so I decided we would do our own testing of these products ” said Spano.

County inspectors then gathered up various trinkets at 16 local dollar stores and brought them to the Department of Labs & Research for analysis. These were items that were not the subject of any recalls.

“The results were disturbing,” said Spano. “All 10 of the products that we have results on so far had significant amounts of lead. There is no safe level of lead, and it has no place in children’s products. We will do everything we can to address this problem. But to keep their kids out of harms way, parents should beware of children’s toy jewelry. With Halloween approaching, parents should be particularly on guard and not purchase these products as part of a costume.”

Exposure to lead can have a wide range of effects on a child’s development and behavior, ranging from poor learning to irreversible brain damage. Children under the age of six are especially susceptible to adverse health effects because their bodies are growing quickly and their brains are still developing.

“We are trying to keep our kids safe, but this really needs to be addressed by the federal government,” said Spano, who reiterated his call for Congress and the CPSC to ban the importing of all these children’s products with lead. “While we will do what we can to get these products removed from our shelves in Westchester, it needs national leadership.”

Currently in New York, it is illegal to sell toys with lead paint or a surface coating of metallic lead in excess of .06 percent. Spano said that the state should consider tightening its law further as well. (The use of lead paint has been banned in the United States since 1978.)

In the meantime, the following has been done, part of Spano’s aggressive effort to get dangerous toys and other products with lead off the shelves in Westchester:

At the county’s request, the seven stores that sold the 10 items have agreed to remove the products. Results are still pending for 43 other pieces of toy jewelry. If the results are the same, the county health commissioner will direct that the stores remove these items from the shelves.
Spano previously issued an executive order banning the sale or distribution of toys with lead at any county government-sponsored event. All vendors of toys, jewelry or other similar items intended for use by children under the age of six who sell such items to the county must affirm in writing that any such toys, jewelry or other similar items which may be sold or distributed to children under the age of six by the county are lead free.
If residents find they have some toy jewelry with lead they may dispose of it at the county’s Household Chemical Clean Up Day.

Of the 10 items already tested, all contained lead that could end up being swallowed by children. One item, an “Everteens Necklace” purchased at “A Dollar” in Jefferson Valley, was found to be 81.7 percent lead by weight. Several others items tested ranged from 50 – 66 percent lead by weight. The lead in these items was present in amounts of up to over 150 times the amounts allowed by the federal government. All of the items were manufactured in China.

Lead-containing jewelry poses a particular risk because children often place jewelry in their mouths, which can result in excessive lead absorption and even death if the jewelry is accidentally swallowed. Last year, a four-year-old child in Minneapolis died from lead intoxication after swallowing a piece of children’s jewelry.

“I recommend that parents not allow their children to use inexpensive toy jewelry,” said Dr. Joshua Lipsman, county Commissioner of Health. “With so much lead-containing toy jewelry in the marketplace, why take a chance? It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

In 2004, the CPSC recalled 150 million pieces of metal toy jewelry sold widely in vending machines. Since then, millions of additional pieces of toy jewelry have been recalled. So far this year the CPSC has issued 20 recalls due to the presence of lead in children’s jewelry, and over 6 million items have been recalled.

However, none of the lead-containing items found by inspectors on local store shelves has been the subject of a federal recall.

The following is a list of the lead-containing toy jewelry found so far:

A Dollar, Jefferson Valley Everteens Necklace
A Dollar, Jefferson Valley Everteens Necklace
Dollar Dream, Tarrytown Blue/Red ½” Fashion Earrings
Dollar Dream, Yonkers Little Darlings Earrings
Dollar Dream, Yonkers “Scale” Mood Ring
Dollar Dream, Yonkers Toe Rings
Just A Buck, Somers Silver Ring with Red Stone
99 Cents USA, Mohegan Lake Teddy Bear Ring
1 Dollar Zone, Yonkers Butterflies Mood Ring
Smart Dollar, New Rochelle Charmania “Cool” Charm