Maryland state and national lawmakers are leading efforts to get the lead and other toxins out of children’s playthings.
“Maryland is in the front of a group of states that wants to protect its citizenry,” said Delegate James Hubbard, D-Prince George’s. He’s the sponsor of two of three bills making their way through the Maryland General Assembly to ban toxic chemicals from toys.
The bills would lower the permissible amount of three chemicals in children’s products: lead, recently found in paint on toys; phthalates, a chemical used to make vinyl more flexible; and bisphenol A, an organic compound used in beverage containers, including baby bottles.
A Maryland bill to immediately limit lead in toys to 600 parts per million passed its House committee on Friday. The same legislation is in a Maryland Senate subcommittee, and both are expected to pass.
The moves are partly in response to a series of massive toy recalls last year, largely focused on the use of lead in U.S. toys by Chinese manufacturers.
The solution to making toys safer, the lawmakers and others said, will likely require cooperation from toy manufacturers and retailers as well as greater federal funding and legislation.
“We are talking about a major chasm in our system that absolutely must be addressed by every party involved,” said Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Baltimore, at a December news conference addressing high levels of lead in children’s toys.
The news conference followed his letter to Mattel’s CEO calling on the company to stop producing toys with lead and to recall two toy blood pressure cuffs with several times the lead level for a recall. On Jan. 30, Cummings, joined by 56 representatives, including Rep. Al Wynn, D-Mitchellville, sent a similar letter to the company.
Also at the federal level, the House of Representatives passed legislation, cosponsored by Cummings, Wynn, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Kensington, to reduce lead content to 600 parts per million immediately, lowering it to 300 parts per million two years after bill enactment and 100 parts per million in another two years.
Similar Senate legislation is expected to pass early next month, but it also boosts funding for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which has been weakened by cuts and has just 15 inspectors to screen a growing number of toy imports.
“It is neither reasonable nor responsible to task an agency with a job as important as protecting the public health without providing the resources necessary to accomplish that task,” said Van Hollen in a statement.
The federal and Maryland legislation targets children’s products because the young are believed to be uniquely vulnerable to these toxic substances that can have a lasting effect, according to experts.
Lead, contained in paint and gas, for decades has been known to cause learning disabilities. Phthalates, included in soft vinyl toys like teething rings, have been tied to kidney and liver problems. Bisphenol A, that can leak out of baby bottles when they are heated, may disrupt hormones, critics charge.
“We can take some progressive steps to remove toys or pay consequences later on down the road in mental health, special education services, or in some cases, institutional costs,” said Hubbard.
Maryland is well ahead of the pack in regulating the other potentially