Lead in toys: A year in review

The current Environews Focus published in Environmental Health Perspectives, Face to Face with Toy Safety by Charles W. Schmidt reviews in mind-boggling detail, the lead problem that blindsided both consumers and major toy manufacturers this past year. By now – who isn’t familiar with stories of exceedingly high concentrations of lead in the brightly colored glossy paint on Thomas the Tank Engine toys, or in the sparkling beads and baubles that little kids love?

Even though it’s an issue we’re all familiar with, the numbers reported in Schmidt’s review are startling. Here are a few: 42 toy recalls, 6 million toys (and these were just the one’s recalled), lead levels in some toys (primarily vinyl) upwards of 2,000 parts-per-million or ppm, that’s 2 part-per-thousand (concentrations of lead paint over 600 ppm trigger a recall. A movement is underway in Congress to reduce this number further.) Some of the highest concentrations are found in kid’s jewelry, which caused at least two cases of lead poisoning in children, one of which was fatal.

In addition to the lead threat, Schmidt also reviews the use of pthalates (certain pthalates are what makes plastic squeeze toys, bottles and other items squeezably soft) another ubiquitous yet less well understood class of chemical contaminants. Some pthalates are known reproductive toxicants, and there are concerns that such pthalates may act cumulatively, potentially additively – such that combined exposures to small potentially non-toxic amounts, may add up to biologically active and toxic concentrations.

It’s an interesting article also covering the Toy Industry’s and the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s response in addition to proposed solutions.

Cross-posted at Encyclopedia of Earth Forum

Fishing for disease

Just a brief note as I prepare a longer (and more depressing article) on farmed fish - salmon in particular. Hearing how local wild caught Connecticut River brood stock salmon, and their offspring, had to be killed off this month after Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis (IPN) virus was detected in a few returning fish, I decided to take a closer look at the relationship between farmed fish and disease in wild fish.

It’s not a pretty picture, and although the link between IPN in our few and very precious local salmon is unclear, there’s plenty of evidence indicating that fish farming has increased disease in wild fish populations. Additionally there are a multitude of other problems that require attention – before farmed fish in a safe (and by this, I mean environmentally sound) manner.

For a quick read on the topic check out “Farming the deep blue sea,” an article about moving fish farming from near shore or coastal areas to offshore, published last spring in Environmental Science and Technology or more recently, Parasites from fish farms driving wild salmon to extinction in the news section of the journal Science.

So - enjoy your salmon in ignorant bliss over the holidays while you can. I'll be posting more on this, particularly the impacts of coastal and near-shore salmon farming in excruciating disease ridden detail later, after the new year.