Deadly Toys of Doom
Deadly Toys of Doom
Dec 03Parents around the world – are you aware of the grave dangers lurking in your kids’ toy crates and baskets? According to our ostrich sources, these dangers include phtalates, choking hazards, and toxic levels of lead and antimony.
The headline: “Report: Toys getting safer, but dangers still lurk.”
The premise: Even though children’s toys nowadays are carefully screened by organizations such as the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, there are still dangerous or toxic toys being sold.
The bottom line: “In 2009, toy-related injuries caused the deaths of 12 U.S. children and sent more than 250,000 children (90,000 under age 5) to emergency departments, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
Best Ostrich quotes:
We’ve made a lot of progress, but dangerous toys can still be found among our children’s playthings.
Buyer beware. The toys identified in the Public Interest Research Group’s report as potential dangers (include) a stuffed monkey made by Play Pets that contained lead just slightly above the limit.
Lead can cause irreversible brain damage, and antimony has been linked to fertility problems in animals.
Although none of the products tested violated federal limits for small parts, the group said several toys were still hazardous for children younger than 3 because the size was not that much bigger than allowed by law.
Let’s bash!
12 deaths a year out of 74.5 million children in the USA means a rate of 1 in 6,200,000; meaning this fear-mongering article falls on the BEYOND OSTRICH category of the Ostrich scale, and it is half as likely as the least likely cause of death on the scale. Off. The. Charts. (Also, what kind of statistic is “emergency department visit”? You can take a kid to E/R five times a day if you like, and that doesn’t mean there is anything really wrong with them.)
Before you throw away all of your poor kids’ toys and replace them with twigs, rocks and rag balls, take this into consideration:
Phtalates: there is a ban on children’s products with more than 0.1% of phtalates. These chemicals are used by the plastic industry to increase the flexibility, transparency, and durability of plastic products. Not only Fisher Price and Little Tykes, mind you, but also on vinyl anything, glue, packaging, medical devices, paints and even sex toys (yes, even your toys are lurking dangers!) And car parts. Shower curtains. Beauty products. So you see, getting rid of little Annie’s Cabbage Patch dolls is not really going to make your house safer. You would have to really go Flintstones on your entire lifestyle to significantly lower the risk of phtalates absorption.
Choking hazards: this one deserves a bash of its own. Stay tuned.
Antimony: OK, we agree that this substance is very poisonous. VERY. But let’s keep in mind two facts: antimony is often used as a fire retardant, which leads to a Catch-22 in the toy industry – do we meet fire retardant standards or do we meet antimony level standards? Will the world end in fire or flood? And also, if you are going to spend nights awake worrying about antimony poisoning, you will be better off reducing and/or eliminating water and juices that come in PET containers, since those are the most notorious antimony leaches. Let Junior play with his ZhuZhu pet – he will get bored of it in a week anyway.
Lead: I’ve got nothing today, but I will bash it soon.
So what do you think? Shall we throw all toys away and let our children play with twigs?
No, wait, they might poke an eye out…
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Sources: Wikipedia, ChildStats.gov, OurStolenFuture.org, Gomestic.com, Suite101.com, BabyCenter.com and KansasCity.com. If you want the list of the actual URLs, just ask!
Note: if you want to argue with statistics in hand, you are welcome. If you wanna wield your little cousin’s sob story, prepare to not be taken seriously. You’ve been warned.
Just make sure the toys are not from china! Also make sure you buy them from reputable places. I think toys “r” us, ttp://wwww.target.com, http://www.ktunesworld.com, and other well known places will ensure what they sell is safe since they have reputations to uphold.
tom recently posted Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Pork Chops and other randomness
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ofthesea Reply:
December 8th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
You’re ruling out about 98% of toys in one fell swoop there!
Also, the fun thing is that even though these reputable stores check their toys like mad, there are people who will STILL find them dangerous and kick up a stink.
And that’s why we are here!
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More toys to add to the list along with the wood burning kits and the lawn darts. And I live in Canada so the baby walker too! Don’t forget anything with small magnets and those awesome mercury bead maze puzzles we use to play with!
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ofthesea Reply:
December 6th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Wood burning kits!? I need to see this!
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I was actually told once by a friend’s mom that it was the Chinese who were secretly trying to kill us off by hiding lead in our children’s toys (she was totally serious). Those sneaky Chinese! ;)
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ofthesea Reply:
December 6th, 2010 at 8:36 am
A-ha! That explains EVERYTHING!
…my god, we’re old. Remember when the Russians were the bad guys?
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Oh, mama! I think this whole awfulness about our childrens’ saftey needs to get reported to Stephen Colbert. I think you would be a perfect guest on his show. Where do we start the Facebok campaign? (I am only about 20% joking –just above the level of smirkiness that is permitted without full consumer disclosure.)
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ofthesea Reply:
December 5th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Lemme write a few more articles and then we can start chasing Colbert! ;)
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Cool. :-) (Your post titles are still mostly in white for me, but the posts themselves are in black.)
Serene recently posted Devil’s Food Cake
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Oh, no, I can’t read your new posts because the gray on white is nearly invisible to me! Please oh please, if I beg you quite sweetly and promise you a gift in the mail, would you make your font a little darker?
Serene recently posted Devil’s Food Cake
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ofthesea Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 9:35 am
Ack, I have no idea why it reset the font colour to white! Can you read now?
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Serene Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 10:04 am
Yes, thanks! (If you send me your address (serene at momfoodproject, com), I’ll send you the promised gift. :-)
(My blog style went nuts when I ran the latest WordPress upgrade. Did you upgrade, too? That might explain it.)
Serene recently posted Devil’s Food Cake
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ofthesea Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
I just moved to a new style, so everything is going ape. Woo-HOO! I will send the address!
Listen here Missy! You and I have discussed privately my personal lead exposure and you made me feel much better about it. Could you not have warned me about the danger I am now facing after playing with toys that have toxins that I was also not aware of? Come on! My kids are grown. They have choked, fallen, broken bones, downed lead as did I, I am sure. They are on there own now as far as what they choose to put in their mouths. I have done all I can there. But, now I suppose I need to be tested for Phtalates. Eh, forget about it. I am sure I have built up an immunity to the shit by now! Haha!
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ofthesea Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 8:03 pm
You and your kids will be my field case study when the ostriches come a’knocking!
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So, I’m not going to go all crazy ostrich or anything here, but I am going to argue one point. If a toy is found to have an unsafe level of lead, I WANT to know and be made aware of it. My now 4yo had lead poisoning when we had him tested about 2 years ago. Because of it, he has a pretty severe speech delay that, while getting better, his speech is nowhere near where it should be for his age. In fact, my 2yo daughter talks just about as well as he does. It also may have caused some behavioral issues. All because we weren’t aware at the time that some of our everyday things were causing him harm. It’s not something to just brush aside or make light of.
OK, that’s all. Please don’t hate me.
C @ Kid Things recently posted The Great School Picture Fiasco
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ofthesea Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 2:35 pm
I totally agree with you – parents should be informed and restrictions should be enforced. This is common sense.
What I object to are panic-inducing headlines and people getting their knickers in a twist because the nose of a Zhu-Zhu pet has levels of antimonium that are slightly above the recommended. This is ostriching.
Where did the lead poisoning come from?
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C @ Kid Things Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 2:41 pm
It’s amazing the things that have lead. We never pinpointed exactly, but we think it was a combination of toys, window blinds (my son used to have this thing where he liked to chew on them, it’s almost like I gave birth to a dog), and paint (we were renting an older place at the time which we thought had been painted over, but we think the window ledges were missed).
C @ Kid Things recently posted The Great School Picture Fiasco
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I just found out of about the phthalates in sex toys.
Can no one enjoy anything is this modern world?
I mean, the kids can go back to hand-sanded, responsibly-forested maple blocks, but what about me, dammit?
CDG recently posted L’Chaim
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ofthesea Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Fear not! Just this morning someone (ahem) pointed me over to this. No phtalates!
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CDG Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Obsidian.
Nice.
CDG recently posted L’Chaim
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Neeroc Reply:
December 5th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
I’ve also ‘heard’ that Lelo are phthalate free…
Neeroc recently posted Sens win again…
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ofthesea Reply:
December 6th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
“All products are non-toxic, phthalate-free, and comply with CE and RoHs standards.” Damn Swedes, why must they make EVERYTHING better?
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Dang it.. where did I put the box for MY toy.. umm franticly checks listed ingredients… ummm whew!!
Don’t SCARE me like that!! I’d hate to have to throw MY toys out of the cot (nudge nudge wink wink) LOL!!!!!!
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ofthesea Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Heck yeah! I also checked mine fot phtalates and antimony. All clear. “Helmut” can stay!
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The picture of C under this blog is PRICELESS. His face looks like he is telling you “Damn woman, dont be hating on mah toys!” (in case the related blogs rotate, its the picture for reason 31. The reasons on either side have no image)
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ofthesea Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I am working on adding images to all articles now. And yeah, I get that face A LOT!
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New Moms Against Ostriches Post:Deadly Toys of Doom. Read it now! http://1000reasonsimabadmom.com/deadly-t...
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