Who Protects Our Children from Unsafe Toys?

The answer is the only protection that children and their parents have to protect children from unsafe toys is the American lawyer working through the Civil Justice System. Most parents are aware of many of the problems that are readily apparent to children such as choking hazards, lead hazards, small items, such as children’s jewelry, toys that can easily be pulled apart, playpens that can trap and choke children, etc.  The American Association of Justice compiled information detailing more than a few of these issues that I would like to share with you.

Did you know that 196 children died from choking on toy parts, small balls and balloons!?  And choking hazards were the leading cause of toy recalls in 2009 and up.  Yet the millions of recalled toys may just be the tip of the iceberg.  Many, many toys still on the shelves barely meet government standards for small pieces.  The most problematic objects are narrow in shape, such as toy nails or darts, because they can easily cause suffocation.  Something that you may not know is that over the last several years, toy manufacturers have increasingly used small powerful magnets creating a new category of deadly toys.  These magnets can come loose and be swallowed by small children.  Unlike other small objects, which are often passed through the body, magnets pose a unique risk.  If two or more magnets are swallowed they can attract each other through the intestinal walls.  This can result in pinched, blocked or twisted intestines.  The effect is fast and devastating.  Magnets quickly erode through the intestinal wall spilling bacteria into the body.  Serious infections, blood poisoning and death may result.  This information should be supplied by doctors, nurseries, hospitals, etc., to parents with newborns.  Unfortunately, I do not know of a case where that is done.  Therefore, I congratulate the American Association of Justice for bringing this problem to the attention of trial lawyers and by this blog hopefully to many more.

Another area that may not come to the average person’s mind is children’s jewelry.  The American Association of Justice recently advised that children’s jewelry is more likely to contain lead or other toxic metals than many other toys.  Even after 18 million pieces of children’s jewelry were recalled between 2005 and 2007, tests still found that 20 percent of children’s jewelry contain unsafe levels of lead.  And the danger was not over once manufactures stopped using lead, as many began to use the carcinogenic metal Cadmium as a replacement.  Unfortunately too, most of the recalled items were never actually returned—meaning toxic jewelry remains on the children’s dressers.

All in all as a parent we need to be aware of these problems and others such as lead contamination with respect to paint on walls.  The long and short of all of this is that a lot of children in this country are being treated in U.S. emergency rooms for toy-related injuries every single year.  As a matter of fact, injuries from scooters, choking, and lead contamination are often in the news, but beyond the headlines, lie even more serious dangers including asbestos and other toxins.

The moral of this is to be cautious about what you allow your child to play with.