Re: Parents Against PVC Toys

[DrBillC@aol.com]

  Marco:
  
  While phthalate plasticizers are primarily used with PVC, lead and cadmium
  can and have been used in almost any plastic.  I know of one very thin film
  application that still uses a cadmium stabilizer for technical reasons.  The
  main use of lead stabilizer in the US is for power wire insulation, typically
  not recommended for sucking.    Practices differ around the world as we saw
  when imported miniblinds were found to contain lead but domestic equivalents
  did not.  For many, if not most, of the articles tested there are vinyl
  products available that do not use either lead or cadmium as pigment or
  stabilizer.
  
  Levels of lead of about 200 ppm (0.02%) are consistent only with its use as a
  pigment, not as a stabilizer.  They might, in some situations, also be
  consistent with inadvertent contamination the product saw along the way.
   Obviously, the same is true of low ppm levels of cadmium.  The question is
  whether that low level of lead or cadmium is available, and whether it might
  reasonably be expected to be used so as to extract it.  I cannot imagine the
  use of either in a toy designed to be put in the mouth.
  
  I would be interested to see whether other toys use either of these materials
  as pigments.  I think the issue is the use of the pigment, the potential for
  and magnitude and impact of exposure and not the matrix it is bound in.
  
  Bill Carroll