Your kids’ toys can trigger asthma: Study

Many local and foreign-made toys sold in India have been found to be contaminated with phthalates — chemicals used to soften the plastic used in manufacturing toys — which retard the growth of reproductive organs and trigger asthma in children, a study by a Delhi-based NGO says. Chetan Chauhan reports...

Updated on: Jan 15, 2010, 01:23:41 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The next time you buy your child a toy, you might want to give plastic a miss.

Many local and foreign-made toys sold in India have been found to be contaminated with phthalates — chemicals used to soften the plastic used in manufacturing toys — which retard the growth of reproductive organs and trigger asthma in children, a study by a Delhi-based NGO says.

The study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) — previewed by HT and to be released on Friday — says that in the absence of any standards for phthalates in India, highly contaminated toys are being sold across the country.

Government agencies don’t test toys for their impact on children’s health.

The CSE did this. It tested toys made in India as well as in China, Taiwan and Thailand (these countries contribute to 70 per cent of imported toys sold in India) and meant for children less than three years of age — mostly chew toys like teething rings. It found high levels of phthalate contamination.

“The toxins in the toys were much higher than prescribed limits in the US and Europe,” said a researcher. What is worse, many of the companies whose toys were tested sell similar but safer products to Europe and the US.

This isn’t the first instance of toxic toys. In 2007, a Delhi-based research group, Toxic Links, found dangerous levels of lead in toys, prompting the government to introduce a voluntary standard for the metal.

Then, in 2008, the United States banned the sale of Chinese toys with high lead content. India followed suit but lifted the ban when China pointed out that India did not have any standards on toys.

“India has allowed Chinese toys with a certificate of safety till January 23,” said a CSE researcher who didn’t want to be named. “After that, toys without certificates will be sold… We need mandatory standards for toys sold in our country.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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