Information is available on Chinese-made pet toys
BY PHIL MULKINS Action Line Editor
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Dear Action Line: Is there
any information about pet toy
safety? Our dog's squeaky vinyl toys, their other toys and
rawhide chews were made in
China. -- T.E., Tulsa.
The report "Toxic Pet Toys:
A Doctor's Advice," was published Oct. 4 by ConsumerAffairs.com (www.tulsaworld.com/pettoybeef), a consumer
group. The group hired Expertox, a Texas lab, to test dog
toys and it found what it called
"elevated levels of lead, chromium and cadmium" in two
Chinese-made pet toys at Wal-Mart.
But another test (www.tulsaworld.com/Illinoistests), paid
for by an Illinois pet owner,
showed that the Petco and
PetSmart toys were within
safe limits for lead paint in
children's toys.
The Illinois Sheltie owner
paid an Illinois Department of
Agriculture laboratory to test
24 Chinese-made dog toys for
lead. The lab said all 24 toys
had lead levels within Illinois'
acceptable limits for lead paint
in children's toys.
It also said the lead levels
were below the 600 parts per
million level accepted by federal law for lead paint in children's toys.
The highest levels of lead --
335.7 ppm -- were found in a
PetSmart tennis ball.
A Hertz Rubber Percival
Platypus had only 0.02 ppm of
lead, said Dr. Gene Niles, the
lab's director and a Diplomat
of the American Board of Veterinary Toxicology.
Dr. Mike Murphy of the
University of Minnesota's College of Veterinary Medicine
who has a Ph.D. in toxicology,
said, "Latex paint can contain
one-half to 1 percent of lead --
10,000 parts per million -- and
the Texas lab says the Chinese pet toys from Wal-Mart
reportedly tested at only one
part per million."
Dr. Fred Oehme of Kansas
State University's College of
Veterinary Medicine, said
most animals require 30 ppm
of their total daily diet to be
lead before it becomes a problem.
The lab said that with one
ppm, a dog chewing on such a
toy "is being exposed to a
good amount of lead and runs
the risk of metal toxicity shortening his life."
Expertox also tested a cloth
catnip toy and found a "tremendous amount" of cadmium -- 236 micrograms per ki-
logram. A microgram is one-millionth of a gram, and there
are 1,000 grams in a kilogram
-- meaning there were 236
parts of cadmium per trillion.
Also tested were a cloth
hedgehog for dogs and a plastic dumbbell for cats, and Expertox found cadmium in both
of those.
But the lab said the levels
were similar to the amount in
one cigarette and not considered significant.
Oehme thinks that all three
toxins are potential hazards
but that the hazard in this case
depends on how the compound is used and its availability.
He's more concerned about
lead than the chromium and
cadmium because lead accumulates in the body and builds
up.
Submit Action Line questions to
699-8888. Action Line pursues consumer complaints submitted with photocopies of documentation to Tulsa
World Action Line, P.O. Box 1770, Tulsa, OK 74102-1770.
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