"No real way to know if toys are safe - yet," Sue Gunderson, CLEARCorps

The media - broadcast, print, and digital - are full of reports of unsafe toys.  Many, yes, contain lead.  Those are pulled off-the-shelves.  But so many more aren't detected.  They remain for parents to purchase for Christmas and children to put in their mouths. 

Given this possible tragedy-in-the-making I buttonholed Sue Gunderson, Executive Director of nonprofit CLEARCorps USA.  What's the story on the lead in the toys, I asked Gunderson.

CLEARCorps was initially founded by the National Coatings & Paint Association to help educate families about lead hazards and therefore prevent children from ingesting lead or breathing in lead dust.  Recently, CLEARCorps USA was awarded the $6.7 million contract for lead remediation in Rhode Island.  The RFP was issued last August by the Healthy Kids Collaborative [HKC].  CLEARCorps was selected, reports HKC Program Director Barbara Baldwin, because its proposal was the most cost-effective and incorporated community partnerships.

When that lead-remediation work is complete, 600 units will remain in the housing stock for low-income families in the Ocean State.  Without making those residences lead-safe they might not be available to those with children.  The funding comes from the 2005 agreement between RI Attorney General Patrick Lynch and DuPont.

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Sue Gunderson, Executive Director of CLEARCorps, about unsafe toys, on-the-record:

"Jane, it is incredibly frustrating to realize that just a tiny tiny fraction of toys are being tested for hazards, be those lead coatings or magnets that children could choke on.  The reality is this: There is no real way yet to know if the toys are safe of not. 

"We can only hope that when the new federal law goes into effect in 2009 that there will finally be a solution to the problem.

"Meanwhile, the risk is there.  For example, I bought a toy for our child.  Shock.  Then I found out that that it had been recalled for lead.

"Get this: I subscribe to the Consumer Products Safety Commission recall email ListServe.  I check all the safe-toy websites.  I work directly in the field of lead safety.  And only today do I discover that what I was ready to give our child is unsafe. 

"If a person such as myself is not able to be sure of buying lead-safe toys, then how is the average mom going to protect her children?  Worse, of course, are those moms who are reliant on donated or second-hand toys because they are poor. 

"Is this the reality in America: Toys are only safe for the wealthy who can afford non-toxic, expensive toys?"

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Readers can reach CLEARCorps here or Sue Gunderson directly at Sue@clearcorps.org, 651-707-7232.