You can't take your eyes off them for a second. No, I'm not talking about the kids. This time, it's the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) monkeying around with toxic toys.

Remember in August, we celebrated a major victory in banning the sale of toys containing the toxic chemicals phthalates starting on February 10, 2009? Well, put the champagne back on ice because we just learned that the CPSC is misinterpreting the law and saying that stores can continue to sell down their inventories of these toxic toys as long as they were manufactured before the February deadline.

Tell the CPSC to stop monkeying around with our kids' health and get these banned children's products out of our stores as the law intended. Send a letter to CPSC Acting Chairman Nancy Nord: www.momsrising.org/really_ban_phthalates

Phthalates, plastic-softening chemicals, have been linked to serious health problems including early puberty (a risk factor for breast cancer), birth defects and testicular cancer. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) was intended to ban sales of these toxic toys starting on February 10, 2009. Congress clearly intended the law to implement a full ban, so that parents would be confident that no toy on any store shelf contains toxic phthalates, and children would no longer be put at risk. Yet now the law is being interpreted as that it's okay to sell toxic toys as long as they were manufactured before the February deadline. This monkeying around with our kids' health isn't cool. No toxic toys should be sold after that February deadline at all.

Don't forget to tell the CPSC to prioritize the health of our kids over the profits of toy companies. www.momsrising.org/really_ban_phthalates

Thanks for your work on behalf of our children's health.

-- Donna, Julia, Joan, Kristin, Katie, Ashley, Mary, Nanette, Gretchen, Lisa, and the MomsRising Team

P.S. For information about how to avoid phthalates in children's products, see
www.breastcancerfund.org/site/pp.asp?c=kwKXLdPaE&b=4132341#tips
Please fell free to send this info on to all your friends. And thanks to the Breast Cancer Fund for all their great work to protect our families from toxic products!

P.P.S. Do you have a budding artist in your family? This January, just in time for inauguration, students pre-K through 12th grade are invited to enter a national art contest to promote children's healthcare. Fifty entries will be selected to be featured at exhibits in D.C.'s Union Station and a Congressional office building. For more information see http://iwanttobehealthytoo.org/blog/