Lead in Toys

The latest issue of the Journal Environmental Health Perspectives has an article on how even relatively small exposures to lead can affect kids' learning abilities: "The results show that blood-lead levels far lower than 10 µg/dL in early childhood correlate with lower educational achievement in elementary school as measured by performance on end-of-grade tests," they report. And today there are news reports about the recall of Fisher-Price toys due to lead paint used on some 967,0000 toys of Chinese import, this right on the heels of the June recall of a million and a half more Chinese toys--Thomas the Tank, a wooden train set--for lead in the paint.

How concerned should parents and grandparents be? Well, most environmental health experts agree that lead is quite dangerous, and at least some experts are advising parents whose children may have been exposed should arrange to have them blood tested for lead. In just one example from an article in Forbes, Dr. John Rosen, lead poisoning specialist at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore (NY), is quoted as saying, 'it's better to be safe than sorry.'

Rosen points out, childhood exposures to lead from paint in old homes is more common than poisoning from consumer products, but in either case, we know lead is a toxin. It shouldn't be in kids toys.