Lead in children?s toys can make the paint brighter or the metals cheaper ? but it can also kill, said Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein.
Amid a massive U.S. recall Thursday of Chinese-made Fisher Price toys featuring Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego, the Baltimore City Health Department reported a “Spider-Man 3” ring to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
“There have been children who have died from ingesting lead, and there is absolutely no reason we need to use lead in these products,” Sharfstein said.
The Spider-Man ring was found at a Dollar Tree at 2445 Frederick Ave. as part of the health department?s random testing of children?s costume jewelry. The silver ring band tested at 17,400 parts per million of lead, and the painted insignia contained 128,000 parts per million, according to the health department release.
All children?s jewelry sold in the city must contain less than 600 parts per million lead, according to a health department ban set to take effect Sept. 1. The new regulation tightens an earlier limit of 1,200 parts per million enacted in December 2006.
“These companies put a tremendous amount of effort into making sure the images look right, the logos are correct. There?s no reason you can?t apply that kind of quality control to the materials used,” Sharfstein said.
Beijing is starting to take notice of U.S. product safety concerns after the latest lead-related recall affecting 1 million toys.
China “attaches great importance to product quality and food safety and is highly responsible,” said Wei Chuanzhong, an official with the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, one of China?s product safety watchdogs.
The problem with the recalled toys was detected by an internal probe and reported to the CPSC, David Allmark, general manager of Fisher-Price, told The Associated Press.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
