Parents Warned About Teethers
Government safety regulators will not seek a ban on plastic toys made with a suspected carcinogen, but are asking toy makers to quit using the plastic-softening compound in baby rattles and teething toys.
The Washington Post in its editions Wednesday quoted Consumer Product Safety Commission officials as saying its studies show that the amount of the chemical - diisononyl phthalate - ingested by small children "does not even come close to a harmful level."
The agency is scheduled to announce the actions - and advice to parents to discard soft vinyl toys that their children chew or hold in their mouths for long periods of times - on Wednesday.
CBS This Morning Consumer Contributor Herb Weisbaum reports that the commission says there is little risk to children but has convinced manufacturers to remove phthalate from soft rattles and teethers by 1999.
The Gerber Products Co. isn't waiting that long. It voluntarily stopped making pacifiers and bottle nipples with phthalates. The company is asking stores to pull its Clear and Soft brand pacifiers and nipples, and urging parents to stop using
them.
Five of the nation's largest retailers are taking their own action. Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, Sears, and Toys R Us are removing all teethers and pacifiers containing phthalates from their shelves.
Kmart spokeswoman Michele Jasukaitis said, "We've just been looking at the research and reading up on it. We are going forward in the interest of our customer safety."
Jasukaitis said Kmart would continue to monitor other products containing pthalate, including those that might not be explicitly for teething but could end up in the mouths of young children anyway.
Toys R Us, the world's largest retailer of children's products, promised last month to have the teething toys off its shelf by Nov. 18.
Several toy manufacturers, including Mattel Inc., Walt Disney Co. and Little Tikes Co., have said they plan to phase out use of the additive.
"Few children, if any, are at risk," Ronald Medford, the commission's assistant executive director for hazard identification and reduction, told the Post. "But given the number of uncertainties, we are, as a precaution, asking the toy industry to take certain steps to reformulate their products intended to go into children's mouths."
The Post said phthalates have been linked in laboratory studies to cancer in mice and rats. They also are a suspected source of liver and kidney damage in laboratory animals.
Environmental groups had asked the commission to ban the chemical ingredient and issue an advisory to parents on its dangers. They also want the commission to have its research reviewed by independent scientists.
"I don't think any American parent wants their child sucking any chemcals out of toys, particularly if that chemical is known to cause liver and kidney damage in animals," Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, said in an interview.
At least seven European governments have banned the use of phthalates in certain toys that commonly are put in children's mouths.
While the chemical industry acknowledges that the chemical caused liver damage when given to rats, it says that was at a much higher dose than the exposure from toys, and tests have shown the process that caused the liver damage in animals does not occur in humans.