Parents warned over carcinogenic toys

GREENPEACE is warning against buying soft vinyl toys for children this Christmas season, as they contain chemical additives that can cause cancer as the children play with them.

The Cyprus Consumers’ Association has also sounded the alarm, urging the government to look into the matter.

And George Mitides, director of the Consumer Protection Centre of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, said yesterday: “We shall investigate the whole situation.”

“We have in mind EU measures” already taken against vinyl toys, he said, adding that his office would also look at “what the United States is doing on this issue.”

“Laboratory tests are possible” in Cyprus on the substances of which the toys are made, Mitides added.

The European Union has already found that two of the chemical compounds used to soften the vinyl and make it appealing to children – known as DINP and DEHP – leach from the toys at levels high enough to cause concern, Greenpeace noted.

A bottle of one of the softeners, DINP, when bought by a laboratory scientist, is labelled: “May cause cancer. Harmful by inhalation, contact with skin and if swallowed. Possible irreversible effects.”

The bottle of DINP that the research scientist buys further warns: “Avoid exposure and wear suitable protective clothing, gloves, and eye/face protection.”

However, vinyl toys containing this same softener – DINP – and bought by parents for their children, and petted, stroked and even taken to bed by the children, contain a label that merely says: “Non-toxic,” according to Greenpeace.

In the last year, urgings to withdraw vinyl toys from the market have been made by the governments of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Germany, and the Philippines, Greenpeace noted.

The US National Toxicology Program lists the other vinyl softener – DEHP – as a “probable human carcinogen”, Greenpeace noted. US toy makers withdrew DEHP from use in 1985.

Besides known carcinogens, vinyls also release lead, something that can cause brain damage, especially in children.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.