Although innocent-looking on the outside, some toys on sale this holiday season can pose hazards to young children.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE — A nonprofit watchdog group yesterday called on parents to be particularly careful this holiday season when buying toys for children as recalls of tainted playthings continue at the start of the nation’s heaviest shopping period.

The Rhode Island Public Interest Research Group yesterday released “Trouble in Toyland,” its annual report on hazardous toys, during a meeting at the Mount Hope Child Care Center in Providence. The group used the opportunity to urge Congress to strengthen product safety laws and increase funding for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, one of the nation’s primary oversight agencies.

“Recent high-profile product recalls have given us a chance to urge Congress to pass strong product safety reforms and give kids the best holiday gift of all,” said Laura Brion, of RIPIRG.

Standing before a table in a daycare classroom, Brion pointed out a handful of suspect toys found on shelves in Rhode Island stores. Among them was a stuffed Curious George doll, a hand-sized John Deere front-end loader, lip gloss and other items. Each, she said, presented some hazard to children. The Curious George doll, for instance, contained five times the amount of lead allowed by the CPSC and a toy zipper that contained 65 percent lead by weight.

“We were shocked to see how dangerous this would be,” to children, she said.

RIPIRG’s research focused primarily on six categories of dangerous toys: those that pose choking hazards; are dangerously loud; pose strangulation hazards; contain toxic chemicals; contain improperly secured magnets; or those that could form dangerous projectiles.

As in past years, the public advocacy group found that balls, plastic playthings and other toys with small pieces continue to be marketed toward children.

Magnets have recently raised more concerns as they’ve been added to more toys in recent years. Mattel Inc., the nation’s largest toymaker, this year recalled 18 million toys with small magnets that could be swallowed by children.

“We all know toddlers love to put things in their months,” Brion said. “These small powerful magnets pose a serious hazard.”

There are at least three proposals in Congress to strengthen the nation’s consumer product laws. The bills all would increase the CPSC’s authority, raise the penalties manufacturers face for producing faulty toys and make product testing mandatory — although only one, the SAFE Consumer Product Act would require testing by entities independent of the manufacturers themselves.

“We urge passage of the SAFE Product Act,” Brion said.

RIPIRG’s efforts come during a year when toymakers are dealing with repeated recalls and lawsuits tied to faulty or dangerous products.

This summer, more than 21 million Chinese-made toys were recalled because of high lead levels or dangerous magnets. More recently, a toy high on wish lists, Aqua Dots, was recalled because it was tainted with a “date rape” drug. Aqua Dots and other Chinese-made toys make up 80 percent of the playthings sold in this country.

Between 1990 and 2005, at least 166 children choked to death on children’s products, accounting for more than half of all toy-related deaths at a rate of about 10 deaths per year, according to RIPIRG’s national counterpart, U.S. PIRG. Several times this year potentially dangerous toys were sold without the required warning labels of possible choking risks while the CPSC also has been slow to issue public warnings, U.S. PIRG said.

Other consumer safety groups are also urging Congress to act.

“The root cause of the imported product safety crisis lies in U.S. trade policies, trade agreements and incentives that have promoted the export of whole swaths of the U.S. manufacturing base, while simultaneously imposing limits on import safety standards and inspection,” Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Division, told a congressional panel in September.

That same month, a House of Representatives subcommittee disclosed its expectations that recalls of lead tainted toys would continue into late fall.

Mattel disclosed to congressional investigators earlier this year that some of the 1.5 million toys it recalled because of lead-paint hazards contained nearly 200 times the legal amount of the toxic metal.

Disclosures such as that forced Mattel, the nation’s largest toymaker, and far smaller companies, to ensure they’re preventing lead from getting into their supplies.

One such company is Little Kids Inc., of Providence, which makes bubble toys and other plastic playthings intended for small children.

“We have customers who are asking us to certify that all of our toys are lead free,” said Jim Engle, president of Little Kids. “They want to make sure all toys coming out of China are tested the right way.”

The company has not had to recall any of its toys, Engle said.

Retailers, such as Toys “R” Us Inc., and companies that contract with others to make toys for them, such as Walt Disney Co., this year have increased their own tests of the products they sell or license.

Even the Toy Industry Association, a trade group, is calling on Congress to make toy testing mandatory.

In formal statements, the association said it shares consumers’ concerns about the recent recalls of toys made with lead paint and other potentially harmful ingredients.

“Recent recalls from a few manufacturers are an indication that we need to strengthen the testing and inspection procedures used to verify that all toy products, from all sources, comply with U.S. safety standards,” Daniel Grossman, the association’s chairman said in September.

In September, the CPSC and a Chinese governmental agency agreed to crack down on the use of lead in toys being exported to the U.S. China agreed to increase inspections at its factories.

RIPIRG though, is focused on seeing the CPSC strengthened.

The agency is charged with oversight of some 15,000 kinds of products, but has only one toy inspector and 15 inspectors for the more than 326 import entry points around the country. Its staff of 400 is about 60 percent less than the nearly 1,000 workers it had in 1980.

The 33-year-old agency currently operates on a $62-million budget, about one-seventh the size of the Food and Drug Administration’s funding for food safety alone.

Current congressional proposals would increase the CPSC budget to between $100 million and $140 million over the next three to six years.

RIPIRG wants Congress to give the agency more staff and more authority, ban lead in toys and require independent toy testing.

To view the complete RIPIRG report, visit www.toysafety.net

pgrimald@projo.com