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Sierra Club Asks Court to Help Protect Kids from Toxic Toys New York, Illinois AGs Also Urge Federal Action to Keep Lead Out of Toy Jewelry The Sierra Club took action today to protect children from toxic toys when it asked a federal court to force the Environmental Protection Agency to use its authority to address the problem of lead in toy jewelry. Despite the common use of lead in toy and costume jewelry and the serious dangers posed by its exposure to young kids, the EPA has refused responsible measures to solve the problem. “Common sense says it’s crazy to sell toys that young kids put in their mouths out of material known to be very harmful to children,” said Jessica Frohman, chair of the National Toxics Committee for the Sierra Club, which filed its case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. “EPA has the authority to correct this problem and it is irresponsible for them to sit passively on the sidelines.” Lead can affect brain development of young children and has been directly linked to a wide range of learning disorders. More than 300,000 American children have blood lead levels high enough to cause irreversible damage according to the Centers for Disease Control. Every one of these cases is avoidable. (Tips on keeping children safe from lead jewelry can be found at http://www.sierraclub.org/healthycommunities/lead/.) While lead paint in older homes is the major cause of childhood lead poisoning, many children are also being exposed to toxic lead through the toys they love. The use of lead in both costume and children’s jewelry continues to be common. Toy jewelry poses a particular problem because of the high likelihood that young kids put them in their mouths and may even swallow them. Toy jewelry made from lead is widely sold in vending machines, dollar stores, and stores that primarily sell to new immigrant communities, but these harmful products can also be found on the shelves of major retailers. Since 2004, the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) has researched and tested hundreds of pieces of jewelry for lead. CEH took legal action against the retailers and manufacturers of these products, resulting in industry wide reformulations and binding agreements with close to 100 companies nationally, including J.C. Penny, Target, Mervyns, Sears, Toys R Us, and Kmart. “California and other states are taking groundbreaking action to keep kids safe from lead in jewelry, but parents across the country need federal agencies to wake up to this call to protect kids from this preventable threat,” said Michael Green, Executive Director of CEH. (A full list of stores can be found at http://www.cehca.org/jewelry.htm#other) Some state and local health departments, including the Indiana State Department of Health and Baltimore City Health Department, have also been undertaking their own investigations and ordering recalls. But that approach has limitations, which is why the Sierra Club’s case has the support of the attorneys general from New York and Illinois and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, among others. “With the increase in children’s products coming from outside the U.S., it is imperative that regulations prohibit unsafe products before they enter the market,” stated Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan a letter to EPA. “While Illinois actions are important, the only way to ensure that children’s products with dangerous lead levels never enter the market in the first instance is through federal action.” After a child in Minnesota died as a result of eating a pendant containing lead on a pair of Reebok shoes earlier this year, the Sierra Club petitioned both EPA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission urging preventative action. CPSC has not yet decided on the Club’s request to ban lead in toy jewelry. EPA refused to require companies to submit health and safety studies regarding lead in their products. EPA also refused to require companies who already had products recalled for lead to document that they have protections in place to stop it from happening again. “Parents are doing what they can to keep their kids out of harm’s way,” said the Sierra Club’s Frohman. “EPA would make that job much easier by taking action to get toxic toys off the market.” |
