Before you buy that must-have toy for your child this holiday season, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group is reminding parents that it still sees plenty of what it calls, “Trouble in Toyland.”
In the annual report from the researchers said they found: toys with high levels of toxic substances, like chromium, still on store shelves; toys for all ages that still posed choking hazards; toys that could be harmful to a child’s ears and hearing; and small magnets that posed a danger if swallowed.
“The findings of this report are alarming because just one toy that could potentially poison a child or choke a child is one toy too many,” said Sujatha Jahgiradar of the U.S. PIRG. “And despite releasing this report for 29 years, and although we’ve seen progress – we do continue to find dangerous toys on the shelves.”
The US PIRG was especially critical of the Walgreens pharmacy chain. It cited Walgreens for not eliminating phthalates, chemicals used to soften and increase the flexibility of plastics, from its toys.
“Parents should avoid shopping at stores that have not adopted a publicly available corporate policy on toxics in their products, such as Walgreens,” concluded Jahagirdar. “Without such a policy, Walgreens does not play an active role in ensuring the safety of the products it sells. Instead, Walgreens leaves it up to manufacturers and suppliers to ensure the safety of products.”
Walgreens emailed NBC a statement reading in part, “We continue to work with the vendor and retail community to address product ingredients, and we recently initiated organizational changes that identify this as a key component of our company’s broader corporate social responsibility program.”
The Toy Industry Association pushed back saying that none of the safety issues reported by the Trouble in Toyland report was done by a Consumer Product Safety Commission-accredited lab. It also said the CPSC hasn’t recalled any of the 88 products identified in the Trouble in Toyland report for the last six years and 20 percent of the products in the 2008-2013 reports weren’t classified as toys.
“First and foremost, parents can be assured this holiday season that all toys sold on US store shelves need to be compliant with very strict US product safety standards and need to be tested to show compliance,” said Rebecca Mond of the TIA. “Year after year, PIRG releases these reports and they’re misleading, they’re inaccurate and they unnecessarily alarm parents.”
- To see the full list of toys included in the Trouble in Toyland report, click here.
- To read more on toy safety, recalls and tips for parents from the Toy Industry Association, click here.
