Michelle Surka, a MassPIRG advocate, and state Rep. Jay Livingstone (D-Boston) display potentially hazardous toys in Boston Tuesday. (State House News Service photo by Antonio Caban)
BOSTON – With the biggest shopping day right around the corner, many American retailers still sell dangerous or potentially toxic children’s toys, according to consumer groups that advise parents to be on watch for hazardous gifts.
Parents and others shopping for children should double check for potential problems before buying, the Boston-based Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, or MassPIRG, said an annual report on the issue. It singled out potentially deadly chemicals such as chromium and phthalates, which can pose serious health risks for developing children.
The report shows that some toys still contained toxic chemicals such as chromium and phthalates, which have serious health impacts on a child’s development.
“We should be able to trust that toys we buy are safe,” Michelle Surka, a MassPIRG safety advocate, said Tuesday in a statement from the group. “However, until that’s the case, toy buyers need to watch out for common hazards when shopping for toys.”
Researcher said they found toys that can present choking hazards for toddlers, toys that can produce extremely loud noises that could threaten a child’s hearing, and some with high-strength magnets that could cause serious injury if swallowed.
Earlier this month, World Against Toys Causing Harm, or WATCH, released its nominees for the “10 Worst Toys of 2015” and said certain toys should not be placed in the hands of children.
WATCH warned that although parents have the right to expect the toys they get for their children to be safe, one child is treated in a hospital emergency room every three minutes in the U.S. for a toy-related injury. WATCH also says that from 1990 to 2011, the number of toy-related injuries jumped 40 percent.
Here’s WATCH’s 2015 list of 10 potentially dangerous toys:
Michelle Surka, a MassPIRG advocate, and state Rep. Jay Livingstone (D-Boston) display potentially hazardous toys in Boston Tuesday. (State House News Service photo by Antonio Caban) 
