HealthyToys.org Reports High Toxic Levels In Children's Toys

Holiday favorite toys and children's gifts including the Hannah Montana Pop Star Card Game, Tyrell Katz vinyl backpack, Squeeze Fish and My Little Sunshine Mirror were found to have high toxic levels.

No government agency is adequately assuring that children's products do not contain harmful chemicals. Nor does any agency require labeling or disclosure to inform consumers about the chemical components of children's products. HealthyToys.org was launched to address the failures of our current system to regulate chemicals in products.

HealthyToys.org tested over 1,200 children's products and more than 3,000 components of those products. Currently, the U.S. government and U.S. toy manufacturers are not providing this data to consumers. Our testing is not necessarily representative of all of the toys on the market. In addition, the presence of a chemical in a product does not necessarily mean there is exposure. Our sampling was conducted by non-profit citizen advocacy and environmental health organizations. HealthyToys.org found:

Lead in products is widespread. Lead is used in a significant percentage of children's toys: Lead was detected in 35% of the 1,268 products we tested.

Other dangerous chemicals were found in toys. Of those toys tested for other chemicals, we found cadmium at levels greater than 100 ppm in 2.9% of products or 22 of 764 total products tested for cadmium . Arsenic was detected at levels greater than 100 ppm in 2.2% of products or 17 of 764 total products tested for arsenic. Mercury was found above 100 ppm in .7% of products or five toys of 764 tested.

More toys, research and finding can be found at the web site.

Source: HealthyToys.org

One Laptop Per Child Extends Special 'Give One Get One' Offer

Buying a $188 computer in the U.S. and Canada and donating a second one to a child in a developing country is the deal extended last week by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program.

The "Give One, Get One" program will now run through December 31, according to OLPC, a nonprofit spinoff from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Originally offered for just a few days, the extension is meant to give groups more time to organize so that they can collectively participate, said Mary Lou Jepsen, chief technology officer for the nonprofit.

"Through 'Give One, Get One,' many more individuals and groups are banding with us to try to make this dream a reality," Jepsen said. "Together, we can truly transform the world by giving education to those children in the developing world that have little or none. Education is the only real way to change things."

Jepsen was inspired and mentored by the late Steve Benton, who was director of the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies and a professor of Media Arts and Sciences. Benton, widely acknowledged as the inventor of the rainbow hologram, told Jepsen that "the dreams that succeed are the ones that get the most people to join and participate," she said. Jepsen was the featured speaker at the 2006 SPIE Awards Banquet, and is one of 23 women scientists and engineers profiled in the 2008 SPIE Women in Optics Monthly Planner.

Source: Spie.org

Learn more at: http://www.laptopgiving.org/