Consumer group finds Zhu Zhu Pets may pose health risk
A consumer safety group has found that one of the hottest toys this holiday shopping season may pose a health risk to your children.
It never fails, every holiday season there is one toy your child is desperate for that is in incredibly short supply. This year that honor falls to Zhu Zhu Pets a line of interactive plush pets with artificial intelligence from Cepia LLC of St. Louis, Missouri. However, there may be a caveat to this year’s success story.
Consumer watchdog group GoodGuide has done some product testing of its own on the little hamsters and found that the toys contain dangerous levels of three different elements. According to CBS News, the group found dangers levels of the chemical antimony which can lead to cancer and reproductive health issues. The federal limit for toys is 60 parts per million, but Good Guide found that the Zhu Zhu Pet Mr. Squiggles had 93 parts per million in its fur, and 103 parts per million in the nose.
Russ Hornsby, CEO of Cepia LLC, released a statement on Saturday that said, “We are disputing the findings of Good Guide, and we are 100 percent confident that Mr. Squiggles, and all other Zhu Zhu toys, are safe and compliant with all U.S. and European standards for consumer health and safety in toys.” According to the GoodGuide page for Mr. Squiggles, the group also found dangerous levels of tin and bromine, but no comment was made directly to those claims.
The company is reportedly contacting GoodGuide to provide it with all of the testing data that was conducted during development, and again before the products were shipped from the factory.
For the time being, GoodGuide is recommending you either throw out any Zhu Zhu Pets you have in your home, or return them to the store where you purchased them.
UPDATE 12/8/09: Please see our follow up article, CPSC declares Zhu Zhu Pets are safe, for the latest information on this story.
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February 9th, 2012
This will be a great blog, might you be involved in doing an interview about how you developed it? If so e-mail me!swtor credits