Toy consultant: Don’t rely on safety labels

Friday, Sept. 7, 2001 | 10:31 a.m.

Parents should study products and rely on good judgment and not always depend on safety labels on toys, says a leading toy safety consultant.

"Twenty-five percent of the population doesn't even read the labels, and once you open up the toy and throw away the packaging, there goes the safety warning label," said Billy Nobles a vice president of RAM Consulting, a Glendale, Calif., firm that tests toys for safety.

"For example, the Burger King Pokemon balls had everything right in the labeling but there were still two (choking) fatalities."

In those cases, younger children got hold of the soft toys that originally were purchased for older children, said Nobles, who is attending the Toy and Game Inventors Forum this week at Bally's.

"There are a number of websites that address toy safety and list dangerous toys," Nobles said. "Parents have to make themselves aware instead of having a blind trust in labels."

One of RAM Consulting's tests is a simple circular gauge of 1.75 inches in diameter. If a device like a sponge ball can collapse and fit through it or the pieces are just too small, the toy is deemed unsafe for young children who can suffocate if the items lodge in their throats.

"We call small items 'critical parts,' " Nobles said. "We have 8,000 death certificates on file and it is amazing the number of them that say paramedics arrived in time but could not extract the item and save the child's life."