Toymakers agree to immediately reduce lead in toys in California lawsuit settlement

Nine major toymakers have agreed to reduce the level of lead in their toys immediately as part of a settlement in a California lawsuit agreed to Thursday, according to stories in the LA Times and San Francisco Chronicle.

The toymakers were being sued by the state of California and the city of Los Angeles. In the settlement, toy manufacturers agreed to meet a new federal lead standard – which goes into effect Feb. 10, 2009 – immediately.

The toy manufacturers include Mattel, Fisher-Price, Marvel Entertainment, Cranium Inc. and others.

The lawsuit included retailers like Toys R Us, Kmart, Target and Wal-Mart, none of whom agreed to a settlement. The lawsuit against retailers will go forward.

"Putting these agreements into effect immediately is absolutely critical because so many toys are sold between Thanksgiving and Christmas, months before new federal standards go into effect," California Attorney General Jerry Brown said in a statement.

The lawsuit is based on California’s Proposition 65, the state's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act.

As part of the agreement, manufacturers will immediately stop selling any toys found to exceed the federal lead levels to California retailers. It will notify retailers and the Attorney General’s office about the toy. But, retailers are not required to stop selling high-lead toys.

Nationally, toymakers have told the federal government that they can't possibly meet the Feb. 10, 2009 deadline for reducing lead in toys.

The settlement came just a day after the release of HealthyToys.org’s holiday toy test findings. HealthyToys.org is a project of the Ecology Center and other Safer States groups. After testing 1,500 toys, the Coalition found 20 percent of the toys contained lead; 54 of the toys contained lead levels that exceeded the new federal standard. Find out which toys are safe and which are unsafe at www.HealthyToys.org.