Lead complaint filed against Disney

[Betty]

Lead complaint filed against Disney
Environmental group tells attorney general that company toys have excessive levels of toxin.

By JENIFER B. McKIM
The Orange County Register


An Oakland-based environmental agency on Monday filed legal action against the Walt Disney Co., saying it had sold lead-laden children's jewelry.

The Center for Environmental Health sent certified notice to the state Attorney General's Office of its interest in suing Disney for failing to warn customers about lead-tainted jewelry, under the state anti-toxics law, Proposition 65.

The center says a Disney-brand "Princess bracelet, key ring" and children's jewelry bought at Disneyland and California Adventure had dangerous levels of lead.

Under Prop. 65, the attorney general has 60 days to decide whether to sue or leave litigation up to the nonprofit group.

"We expect Disney to take swift action to protect children from this toxic jewelry," said Michael Green, executive director of the Center for Environmental Health, which sent letters to Disney and the attorney general Monday. "It should be the responsibility of these companies to know about the safety of what they are selling."

Disney officials had not yet been contacted and would investigate. They said product safety is important and all licensees must follow federal product-safety guidelines. "We take this very seriously to make sure our products are safe for kids," said Clint Hayashi, a Disney spokesman.

The legal challenge comes amid growing concern nationwide over lead-tainted children's jewelry. Last year, Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed a lawsuit against 13 major retailers for failing to warn customers about lead-laden jewelry, and federal regulators pulled more than 150 million pieces of toy jewelry off shelves.

The Disney jewelry includes a "mood" necklace and bracelet with vinyl cords that contain high levels of lead, the center says.

The cords registered up to 19,500 parts per million lead, more than 32 times the allowed level for lead paint, the center said. The Disney bracelet had faux pearls with a coating that tested 166,000 parts per million lead, the center said.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/0...cle_477486.php

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Hmm, and here I thought it was just an excess of pink girliness.

[tracilicious]

Oh my God. It would never have occurred to me to worry about lead in kids toys and jewelry. My Grandfather, who died when I was small, was a painter. He had lead poisoning. It's not good stuff. I wonder what other toys aren't safe.

[BarTopDancer]

Prop 65 is the thing that requires almost every single freekin building in CA to put up a sign saying that you may be exposed to lead if you go in here. I don't think there is any more lead in toys today then were in toys when we were growing up. In fact theres probably less since the dangers of lead are more prominent now.

[tracilicious]

Heavy metals wreak havoc on your body. The fact that there were toxic substances in our toys doesn't make me feel any better. It's not like we're a healthy generation. Awareness is a good thing.

[mousepod]

I just wish they would stop making lead so darn delicious...

Seriously, I wonder how many other toys currently have high lead levels. I can't imagine that Disney is the only company that uses this factory or that this is the only toy produced there...

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

Heavy metals wreak havoc on your body. The fact that there were toxic substances in our toys doesn't make me feel any better. It's not like we're a healthy generation. Awareness is a good thing.

http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/background/p65plain.html
"For chemicals that are listed as causing birth defects or reproductive harm, the "no observable effect level" is determined by identifying the level of exposure that has been shown to not pose any harm to humans or laboratory animals. Proposition 65 then requires this "no observable effect level" to be divided by 1,000 in order to provide an ample margin of safety. Businesses subject to Proposition 65 are required to provide a warning if they cause exposures to chemicals listed as causing birth defects or reproductive harm that exceed 1/1000th of the "no observable effect level."

The claim is that these toys have 32 times the legal limit, the legal limit being 1/1000 the amount that causes even the SLIGHTEST effect in a lab environment (meaning, I'm sure, prolonged exposure). Run for the hills!!!! These bracelets have 33 times less lead than is necessary to cause one rat in a thousand to have a birth defect after being rubbed with lead every day of its life!!!!!!!!

Sigh. When you put big scary warnings on EVERYTHING, it diminishes the importance of actual danger. I find it difficult to be up in arms about this very very minor incident. Is it good that there's a large safety net? Absolutely. But it's a large safety net, and it's served its purpose. Can we stop fearing for the lives of our children now?

My favorite is the threshold for substances known to cause cancer. If there is an amount that would cause an increased likelihood for 1 in 100,000 individuals after regular exposure for 70 years...they have to slap the warning on it.

[Stan4dSteph]

A lot of the crap jewelry they used to sell in those little vending machines was filled with lead also. The problem with it is that kids chew on the stuff and ingest the lead. Since kids are smaller and their brains are still developing, lead is more of a worry for them.

I don't know all the details behind the case, but I don't have a problem with telling Disney to stop selling crap with lead in it. Use something else or stop selling it. Buying crap from cheap overseas wholesalers can bite you in the ass.

[Name]

Don't go outside, exposure to sunlight causes cancer.....

Shouldn't there be a sign at the front gate of DL with a sunlight exposure warning, or is there and I'm just not observant.

[innerSpaceman]

And here I thought this was going to be about a "lead" complaint filed by managerial-level CMs getting peon-level wages.