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Duke University Medical Center
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 17
APRIL 29,1977
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA
They Built Safe Toys But Couldn't Sell Them
By David Williamson
Is it possible to create toys that are
completely safe for young children —
toys that won't break, get swallowed,
bum, make ear-damaging noises, cut
small hands, shock or emit
dangerous radiation?
Wouldn't such playthings make a
fortune for their manufacturers?
■ Wouldn't consumer groups and
parents everywhere be grateful?
The Questor Education Products
Co., a Bronx, N.Y.-based toy firm
found out the hard way that the
answers to these questions, at least
in its experience, are "yes," "no" and
"no."
Most Rigorous Testing
In late 1973, the company
challenged Dr. Jay M. Arena, a child
safety expert at the medical center,
and Dr. Samuel Southard, chief of
pediatrics at Atlantic City (N.J.)
Medical Center, to submit some of
its products to the most rigorous
safety testing ever done on toys.
The two physicians, who have
recently published an account of
their work in Clinical Pediatrics,
consulted with dozens of chemists,
engineers, physicists, poison experts
and others over a two-year period.
They also had the toys, which
Questor called "Shrimpies," sent to
two major commercial testing
companies specifying the analyses
they wanted performed.
TTie toys included cars, trucks,
people, farm animals, boats, steam
engines and building blocks, all
made from a new class of
thermoplastic polymers known as
Kraton.
"We put these toys through every
TV To Focus On
Disaster Survival
What would you do if you were
caught in a fire, flood, tornado,
hurricane or earthquake? You can
find out your "survival quotient" by
watching "The National Disaster
Survival Test," Sunday (May 1) from
8-9:30 p.m. on WRDU (Channel 28).
Emmy Award-winner Tom Snyder
will host the program, an NBC
Television Big Event, produced by
Warren V. Bush Productions, Inc., in
cooperation with the National Safety
Council.
"Every day, somewhere in the
nation, people helplessly confront
disaster ^ents, within which theae
are thousands of accident events,"
said Vincent L. Tofany, National
Saf^ Coimcil president.
"While most major disasters 'just
happen,' most of the accidents
Within disasters are preventable
provided pe^>lc know how to cope
with them," Tofany said. "The
Natioiul Disaster Survival Test
should help peo^ 4o )ust that"
BUILDING The blotks Dr. Jay
M. Arena is using are the only part of the
Sufjersafe line of toys Questor Education
Products Co. still manufactures. Arena,
professor of (jediatrics and director of
the Poison Control Center, and another
physician coordinated rigorous safety
testing on the toys over a two-year
period. (Photo by Ina Fried)
test imaginable, including some that
had never been done before, because
Questor wanted to prove their
products were absolutely safe,"
Arena said in an interview. "We
were interested in developing
absolutely safe standards for
testing."
Mechanical jaws chewed the
colorful Shrimpies, he said. They
were also dropped repeatedly on
hard surfaces, exposed to flames,
incubated with bacteria, examined
for sharp edges and projects and
assaulted in a variety of other ways.
"Since the playthings emitted no
sounds or radiations and were not
designed for use with electrical
current, they were shown to be free
from these hazards," the pediatrician
said.
Still more tests proved that
preschool children could not be hurt
by chewing on Shrimpies and
leaching out toxic chemicals, that the
smallest parts were too big to be
swallowed and that X-rays could find
the plastic Kraton even if a child
managed to consume some anyway.
With Flying Colors
Shrimpies that reached the
marketplace in 1975 had passed all
their trials with flying colors.
Convinced that they had created
perfect toys, Questor executives,
who paid for the experiments,
dubbed their entire Kraton product
line "Supersafes."
"Earlier, we had conducted
extensive surveys of mothers with
young children, and just about all of
them said they wanted toys that
were first safe .and then
educational," said Len Cooke,
Questor's manufacturing manager.
But for some reason. Supersafes
didn't sell well, Cooke said.
Observers were- stationed in toy
stores to watch the bujring habits of
consumers and find out why.
Fun To Play With
"Most people bought toys that
looked like they would be fun to play
with regardless of their safety or
educational value," he said wist^lly.
"Because they weren't selling, we
had to stop making Shrimpies last
year and the only part of the
Supersafe line we still manufacture
are the building blocks."
Pediatrician Southard was
philosophical about the failure of the
toys.
"Unfortunately, safety doesn't
turn people on in this country," he
said. "I really can't explain it.
Is Safety Dull?
"Perhaps it has something to do
with our heritage — rugged
individualism, winning the West
and all that. Maybe toy buyers
equate safety with dullness," he
added. "Or maybe Questor didn't
push them hard enough."
Arena has been an outspoken
child safety advocate since 1931
when, as a medical student at Duke,
he treated a youngster who
swallowed lye.
He said that between July 1, 1975
and June 30, 1976, an estimated
783,000 children were injured badly
enough by toys to require treatment
in hospit^ emergency rooms in this
country, - according to the U.S.
Consumer Product Safety
Commission.
(Continued on page 4)
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BAOC fOR A HAPfV OCCASKM-^ihete fraduMes of the
intensive Cw »liiw>iywf^ among Ochildfen who returned
to ttae hospitM Jv lpiM*s tfMrd anmnt teunion last M«ek.
Hie party in the Ifcatd looni ga«e an cpportunity for the
children, their families and the ICN staff to renew
acquaintances and for the staff to see how well the chikbcn
haw done since ieavinK the hoipitaL See pafe 3 for man
guests of honor. (fhototbfk>»ftiidi