CathyB
Member since 5/05 19403 total posts
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NYT Article about possible high lead levels in Mega Blocks
of course Andy plays with/chews on them all day long.
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Lead in Toy Exceeds Limit, Magazine Says
OTTAWA, Oct. 18 — After rebuffing a toy maker’s effort to block publication, a Canadian consumer magazine is reporting that a popular line of children’s blocks sold throughout North America contains high lead levels.
In an article that will be available at newsstands on Friday, the magazine, Protégez-Vous, said that tests conducted by an independent laboratory had found that some samples of Mega Bloks Maxi plastic building bricks exceeded the lead limit of 600 parts per million set by the Canadian and American governments.
The Maxi series blocks are intended for young children and are made in Montreal by Mega Brands, which has extensive operations and distribution in the United States.
Health Canada, a government department, said that the preliminary results of tests on a random sample of the blocks last week showed “no quantifiable total lead content in the plastic.” Mega Brands, which unsuccessfully sought a court injunction against the nonprofit magazine this week, also vigorously denied that its products exceeded regulatory lead limits.
The dispute between the toy maker and the publisher centers not on the magazine’s reported findings, however, but on what constitutes an appropriate test for lead in some kinds of plastic toys.
David Clerk, the magazine’s publisher and the executive director of Les Editions Protégez-Vous, said that after consulting with Health Canada, the magazine hired an independent lab in Quebec to perform what he called a “total lead test” on 32 toys, including the Maxi blocks. Essentially, the process involves scraping off a sample of the toy’s plastic, dissolving it in acid and then analyzing the solution.
When the results were returned by a lab, which Mr. Clerk said he could not identify because of a confidentiality agreement, a yellow Maxi block was the only toy that exceeded the 600-parts-per-million limit for lead set by Canada and the United States. Blue and red Maxi blocks showed no lead at all.
For confirmation, the magazine tested a second yellow block. It contained 1,180 parts per million of lead, nearly double the initial result.
Harold Chizick, a spokesman for Mega Brands, said that the magazine had used an inappropriate test for this kind of toy. “We do not have a lead problem,” he said. “It is a misleading test to do on that part.”
When testing plastic toys that are not painted, Health Canada, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission and Bureau Veritas, a testing lab under contract to Mega Brands, perform what the industry calls a migration test.
Mr. Chizick said such tests simulated how much lead would seep out of a toy if, for example, a child put it in his or her mouth.
Donald L. Mays, the senior director of product safety planning at Consumers Union, which publishes the magazine Consumer Reports, said migration tests typically analyzed a solution, often vinegar, that was left sitting on the toy’s surface for a period of time.
Both Mr. Clerk and Mr. Mays said that their publications believed that the migration test made too many assumptions about how toys would be used and how they would deteriorate over time.
“This is a loophole,” Mr. Clerk said. “Why is it that in 2007 we are still finding lead in toys?”
Lead is sometimes added to plastics to give them yellow or red color, Mr. Mays said. Alternative pigments sometimes are more costly and often have longer drying times.
Mr. Chizick of Mega Brands did not directly respond when asked if his company would find high lead levels if it performed total lead tests on the yellow blocks, at one point calling the question “hypothetical.”
Consumers Union is pushing American regulators to switch to total lead tests for all products used by children, Mr. Mays said.
“When you look at migration, you have to make several assumptions about what the risks are,” Mr. Mays said. “Why go there when you do not have to have lead in the products to begin with?”
The Consumer Product Safety Commission did not respond to requests for comment. Joey Rathwell, a spokeswoman for Health Canada, said the department was reviewing its lead regulations.
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