Lead in Toys and Toy Jewelry
This page includes general information related to lead in toys and children’s toy jewelry.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has a comprehensive program on lead in toys including toy jewelry. Read more information on CPSC’s regulations and guidance about lead in consumer products.
When a child puts an object containing lead in his or her mouth, the child can suffer seriously from lead poisoning. To help protect against that risk, CPSC has put protections in place that ban the use of lead in many children’s products. For example:
- In 2004, the threat of lead poisoning from toy jewelry led the CPSC to conduct a voluntary recall of 150 million pieces of metal toy jewelry sold widely in vending machines.
- In 2007, CPSC issued a press release announcing the Fisher-Price recall of 967,000 toys due to lead poisoning hazard.
Toy jewelry containing unsafe levels of lead has continued to be sold even after CPSC issued guidance to prevent the sale of these products. Other products containing lead have also been recalled, such as crayons, chalk, clothing, and children’s products painted with lead-based paint.
- Learn what to do if you suspect your child has swallowed toy jewelry (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
CPSC has evaluated whether commercially available lead test kits reliably and accurately detect the presence or absence of lead in consumer products, such as toy jewelry and children's vinyl toys. Based on this evaluation, CPSC does not recommend that these test kits be used for consumer products.