Manhattan toys and Lead safety

[Sweetpea972]

Where can I find out if these infant toys are lead free? We have a bunch of toys from this company and I can't find any info on them. Wondering if anyone here would know.

Thanks!!

[brittone2]

Maybe someone else will have ideas, but for right now, I think it is almost impossible. A lot of manufacturers are using "allowable" amounts of lead in their products that are technically within legal limits. I think finding out how much lead is in those products would be difficult. Even more difficult is identifying which products have lead in them that the manufacturer isn't aware of. The only way I've heard of most products being identified right now are either when consumer groups or CPSC find the lead (and then the manufacturer usually takes a while to do their own testing, as does the CPSC. Even then, some manufacturers are saying the lead tests done by consumer groups aren't exactly the same tests the government uses, so they insist their product is in the legally allowable range.

The only lists I know of so far are those of recalled toys, which can be found at the CPSC website, or the random testing done by consumer groups and media, which is spotty. Unless they tested the toy by pure luck, I'm not sure you could find out if it has lead, other than taking it to a screening using XRF in your community if it is offered.

I think the problem is lots of manufacturers don't know if their current toys have lead since the paint was supposedly swapped in certain instances. If they are testing their current toys, they may not be sure whether they were truly lead-free in the past.

I'm not sure exactly what type of list you are looking for, but as far as I know, you'd be hard pressed to find out short of a recall or consumer group testing that particular product.