Minnesota group tests toys, finds toxic results

Holiday shopping
Shoppers wonder through a retail store's game department.
Photo by DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images

A Minnesota-based consumer group says more than a third of the toys it tested contain significant amounts of toxic chemicals.

Healthy Legacy and its public health partners in other states tested more than 1,500 toys for lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, chlorine and bromine.

The results are posted on their website.

Project Coordinator Lindsay Dahl said 38 percent of the toys contained medium or high levels of one or more of the six chemicals.

"We can do better. We know we can do better and we know that we can have safe products for our children," Dahl said.

Twenty percent of the tested toys contained lead, with some readings well above new federal guidelines set to take effect in February.

But compared to last year, Dahl said overall lead levels are approximately 50 percent lower. She credits public pressure for the decline following some high profile lead scares involving toys made in China.

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