Lead in toys: How can you tell?

Keep suspect jewelry and trinkets out of the hands - and mouths - of young children.

By JAMES ELI SHIFFER, Star Tribune

Last update: February 22, 2009 - 1:20 PM

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LOOKING UP RECALLS

To keep informed about dangerous projects, www.cpsc.gov has a database of more than 4,000 recalls going back to 1973. You can search by product type, product description, product category, company, hazard, country of manufacture or date. You can also sign up for e-mail alerts about product recalls. And the agency has a consumer safety hotline, 800-638-2772, which is staffed during business hours and takes messages anytime.

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As a parent, I always worry that the trinkets and party favors my kids bring home are made of something lethal. The government agency in charge of product safety last week tried its best to reassure me.

"On the front line of consumers, parents going into stores, we want them to know that they should have increased confidence," said Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The reason: a new law went into effect this month that restricts lead and another potentially harmful substance, plastic softeners called phthalates, from children's products.

Championed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act was inspired in part by outrage over the death of a 4-year-old Minneapolis boy named Jarnell Brown. He was poisoned three years ago after he swallowed a lead charm that had accompanied a pair of Reebok sneakers.

"The death of Jarnell Brown had a major impact on our agency," Wolfson said. Today, his agency's inspectors patrol U.S. ports, armed with "XRF guns" that they use to sniff out lead in imported products.

The agency also has a bigger club to whack violators: the maximum penalty rose from $1.8 million to $15 million, he said. The $1 million fine paid by Reebok last year in Jarnell Brown's case was the largest of its kind in the agency's history.

Perhaps more significant than the new enforcement power, businesses are scrambling to ensure their products don't violate the new limits on lead and phthalates. The law requires manufacturers and importers to test their products and send the results to the government, but that provision was postponed for a year for certain products. Nevertheless, "major testing laboratories in the United States and around the world are overwhelmed right now," Wolfson said.

That's all well and good. But when one of those trinkets shows up in my house, and I don't have an XRF gun, how can I be sure it's safe?

If I know who made it or sold it, I can check the CPSC's website to see whether the product has been recalled. Last year, products were pulled off the market in 70 recalls because of lead hazards. I know there are more lead-laced baubles than that.

So it comes down to common sense. Wolfson said that if your kids are young enough to put toys in their mouths, don't give them any suspect jewelry. The safety is worth putting up with the screams of indignation.

whistleblower@startribune.com

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