When researchers tested hundreds of popular toys and other children's products in late 2008, one in three tested were found to contain "medium" or "high" levels of lead, cadmium, arsenic, PVC and other potentially harmful chemicals. The good news: 62 percent of the products tested contained minimal or no toxic chemicals. This widget from healthytoys.org includes test results for lead in more than 2,200 children’s products - use it to shop for safe baby stuff.
How to Use the Widget
You can search by:
- product name
(such as Alex chalks or Koala Baby bib)
- brand name (such as playmobil or Playskool)
- product UPC code (a number, like
98765432101)
- level of lead detection (HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW, or
NONE).
In order to run the Widget,
you must have Adobe Flash Player version 9 or higher installed. Adobe
Flash Player may be downloaded here. What Else You Can Do
- See lists of the worst and best toys by chemical
content, and nominate toys for the researchers to test, on the Healthy Toys
website.
- Get safety info while you're out
shopping. Just send an SMS to 41411, with the text healthytoys and the
name of the product (for example, healthytoys Elmo), and you'll get a
text back containing the test results for that toy. How cool is that!