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 As
anyone with children knows, those years when your kids are little can
turn your house into one big playroom. With four kids and associated
toys to keep track of, it seemed no matter how hard my wife and I tried
to have our children keep their toys in one place and limit the number
of toys in the house, we were always tripping over a runaway doll or a
toy fire engine “responding” to a kitchen fire. Although our kids are
now grown, the arrival of our first grandchild means we find ourselves
back in toy stores every now and then.
However, with the recent recalls of many popular toys and with over
three billion toys sold every year in the United States, picking the
right toy has become more complicated. The old questions parents and
grandparents would ask themselves were: is this toy going to provide
some fun or educational benefit and is it age appropriate? Now, the
question on many toy-givers’ minds is: will that toy be safe? As a
parent and a grandparent, I understand the concern consumers feel when
searching through the aisles of toys. You cannot help but wonder if the
toy is going to do harm to your child– even if the toy comes from some
of the toy worlds’ biggest name manufacturers. As we enter the holiday
shopping season, this concern becomes even more immediate.
There are both short-term and long-term ways to ensure the safety of the
toys we bring into our homes. For short-term help, both the U.S.
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the toy industry have Web
sites you can access for information about the reasons toys are being
recalled, and how you can identify if toys in your house are impacted.
You can visit the CPSC at www.cpsc.gov
and the Toy Industry Association at
www.toyinfo.org or call the toy industry’s 24-hour hotline at
1-888-884-TOYS. For a complete list of toy recalls, visit:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/category/toy.html.
CPSC also released the following general recommendations that are good
reminders for anyone buying a toy this holiday season or throughout the
year:
• Be a label reader – look for toy labels that give age and safety
recommendations and use that information as a guide.
• For ride-on toys such as skates, skateboards, and bikes, make sure
helmets and safety gear that fits the child is purchased with the toy.
• Charging batteries should be supervised by adults. Chargers and
adapters can pose burn hazards to children.
• Immediately discard plastic wrappings on toys before they become
dangerous play things.
• For the following age groups, CPSC recommends the following:
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For children younger than age three, avoid toys with small parts, which
can cause choking.
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For children under age six, avoid building sets with small magnets. If
magnets or pieces with magnets are swallowed, serious injuries and/or
death can occur.
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For children under age eight, avoid toys that have sharp edges and
points.
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Projectile toys such as air rockets, darts and sling shots are for older
children. Improper use of these toys can result in serious eye injuries.
But simply being careful consumers is not enough. As a long-term
solution, the United States needs to focus attention on the safety of
our imports – not just toys, but on the myriad of imports coming into
our country every day. Currently, U.S. imports total $2 trillion every
year and this number is expected to triple – up to $6 trillion – by
2015. As more and more products come from countries overseas, like
China, which do not comprehensively regulate product safety, the United
States needs to reevaluate and update current import screening and
safety checks.
In July 2007, President Bush appointed an Interagency Working Group on
Import Safety, compromised of twelve key agencies in the federal
government. This type of cooperation between government agencies is
essential if we want to make real progress. And we must make
improvements in this critical area of import safety which affects our
security, our health, and our economy. The Working Group recently
released recommendations that will holistically strengthen our import
safety procedures. For more on the Working Group’s recommendations and
progress, visit:
www.importsafety.gov.
Additionally, as Chairman of the Congressional China Caucus, a
bipartisan caucus that studies China as an emerging political, military
and economic power, I will continue to study the safety of our imports -
particularly from China - as well as work to encourage continued
cooperation between government agencies to deal comprehensively with
threats to the United States such as import safety. In October, the
House of Representatives passed
H.R. 2474,
the Product Safety Civil Penalties Improvement Act, which will
strengthen monetary penalties for manufacturers that knowingly
distribute faulty products or fail to adhere to CPSC guidelines.
Additionally, I support reforming the CPSC to enable the commission to
increase its effectiveness in combating the growing product safety
threats in the United States, particularly from products made overseas.
Several proposals have been suggested in the House and Senate and I hope
that we can move forward with a responsible reform solution.
 For
better and for worse, the days of simple toy choices – whether or not to
buy a Slinky, a Potato Head, little green Army men, or Chutes and
Ladders – are behind us. Gone, too, is the luxury of not worrying about
the safety of toys beyond ensuring the toy doesn’t have any small parts.
At the federal government level, we must take quick and decisive steps
to minimize the risks that have become all too familiar to us this past
year. As we work to do that, each of us as parents, grandparents and
caregivers can arm ourselves with knowledge and resources to know which
toys are safe for our children. I encourage all holiday shoppers this
season to research the toys they are planning to buy, follow the CPSC’s
recommendations on toy safety, and have a happy, healthy, and safe
holiday shopping season.
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