Trouble in Toyland
Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield asks you to please Shop Safely for Toys this Holiday Season
Hazardous toys are still sold in stores across the country, according to the 22nd annual toy safety survey released today by the Georgia Public Interest Research Group (GA PIRG). According to the most recent data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), toy-related injuries sent almost 73,000 children under the age of five to emergency rooms in 2005. Twenty children died from toy-related injuries that year.
For 22 years, the GA PIRG Trouble in Toyland report has offered safety guidelines for purchasing toys for small children and provides examples of toys currently on store shelves that pose potential safety hazards. There are several categories of toy dangers:
- toys that pose choking hazards
- toys with powerful magnets
- toys that contain excessive levels of toxic lead
- toys that pose strangulation hazards.
Please Check Out These Web Resources Before you do your Holiday Shopping for Kids:
- Tips on Toy Safety: www.toysafety.net
- List of Toys Recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission: www.cpsc.gov
- Georgia Public Interest Research Group's Trouble in Toyland Report: www.georgiapirg.org
- How to Handle Child Emergencies: www.kidemergencies.com
- Fox 5 Atlanta Broadcast on Toy Safety featuring Rep. Benfield and her 2 year old daughter: http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/ContentDetail?contentId=4991334
Rep. Benfield also urges you to call on your U.S. Representative and Senators to pass the strongest possible product safety reforms under consideration:
- Congress should ban lead except at trace amounts. The PIRG-backed HR 3691, the SAFE Consumer Product Act, sponsored by Rep. DeLauro (Conn.)and 150 co-sponsors, would reduce all lead levels - in paint or in the product -- to the level recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 40 parts per million or 15 times less than the current allowable level of 600 ppm.
- Congress should increase the budget and staffing of CPSC as much as possible. CPSC has only one toy tester and a tiny force of 15 inspectors to check millions of toys at hundreds of ports of entry.
- Congress should require companies to guarantee that their products have been subject to independent third party testing before they put them on toy store shelves.
- Congress should also give CPSC more tools to punish companies that break the law.
The Contact information for the Congressional Delegation for House District 85 (Rep. Benfield's district) is as follows:
- Rep. John Lewis: (202) 225-3801, http://www.house.gov/formjohnlewis/contact.html
- Rep. Hank Johnson: (202) 225-1605, http://hankjohnson.house.gov/contact_hank.shtml
- Senator Saxby Chambliss: (202) 224-3521, http://chambliss.senate.gov/public/index.cfm
- Senator Johnny Isakson: (202) 224-3643, http://isakson.senate.gov/contact.cfm
