Unsafe Toys Claimed 23 Lives Last Year, Agency Says

Nearly two dozen children died last year while playing with unsafe toys, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday in its annual warning to parents about potentially harmful playthings.

“Many parents are not buying the appropriate types of toys for their children’s skills and ages,” said commission Chairwoman Jacqueline Jones-Smith, adding that youngsters should not be given toys with small removable parts.

The CPSC said 23 children died last year and estimated that 129,000 were injured by toys. A year earlier, the agency had attributed 33 deaths to hazardous toys.

The commission issues the warning each year before the Christmas season, the biggest toy-buying time of the year. But consumer groups criticized the federal agency for not being tough enough on toy makers.

“The commission obviously needs to improve its regulations,” said Lucinda Sikes of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. “They’re definitely not doing enough.”

Sikes said the number of children injured in toy-related accidents increased 11% from 1989 to 1990. She said many injuries involved small balls that met federal standards designed to weed out objects that can lodge in a child’s throat.

CPSC issued its warning a day after Boston lawyer Edward Swartz, who has spent 20 years searching the country for dangerous playthings, issued his annual list of most dangerous toys.

CPSC doesn’t compile such a list, but noted that the agency has recalled 165 toys this year ranging from teddy bears and dolls to trucks and trains to tools and cooking utensils.

Last year, 252 toys were recalled.

None of the toys on Swartz’s list was recalled; some were no longer in production.

Jones-Smith said the commission has “had to do a lot more digging and a lot more searching” this year to find unsafe items.

Debbie Tinsworth of CPSC said the death figures were an estimate based on reports from consumers, lawyers and coroners. She said the injury figures were based on the number of children treated in hospital emergency rooms nationwide.

Jones-Smith said the commission has stepped up its efforts to keep foreign-made toys that do not meet U.S. safety standards from entering the country. She said CPSC, in cooperation with the U.S. Customs Service, had seized 1.7 million toys within the last year.

Sikes said three-fourths of the toys that her public interest group considered dangerous were made overseas, and that foreign manufacturers are “not getting the message that there are these safety standards that they must meet.”