The holiday season and the time to start making those holiday shopping lists have arrived. Parents, grandparents, other relatives, and friends alike will be deciding on toy purchases for the special children in their lives, and, due to more stringent federal toy safety regulations, there are a variety of safe toys to choose from. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), some of the new toy safeguards, include:
- Establishing the lowest lead paint and lead content limits in the world;
- Strictly limiting the use of certain phthalates (substances added to plastics);
- Making voluntary toy standards mandatory;
- Requiring third party testing and certification of toys intended for children 12 years old or younger; and
- Tracking toy shipments in transit from outside of the U.S. with the help of Homeland Security, thereby increasing the rate of seizure of dangerous toy imports.
These standards have established a safer toy market, reflected in the decline of toy recalls since 2008. Recalls dropped from 172 in 2008, to 50 in 2009, and 46 in 2010. However, defective or unsafe toys still pose a threat to children.
Unsafe toy-related child deaths for children younger than 15 years of age increased to 17 deaths in 2010 from 15 reported deaths in 2009. Almost half of these involved choking on small balls, rubber balls, and balloons. In addition, 181,500 children younger than 15 sustained toy-related injuries and were treated in hospital emergency departments in 2010.
If your child has been injured by a defective or unsafe toy or child’s product in New Jersey, you may be entitled to compensation for damages surrounding their injuries. At Blume Forte, our knowledgeable defective toy attorneys in New Jersey can help you determine whether your claim may have merit, call 973-845-4421 for a no-cost consultation.