WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government safety regulators asked toymakers on Wednesday to stop using a cancer-causing chemical in baby rattlers and teething toys. But they said there is no need to ban all toys made with the substance.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission said studies show that the amount of the chemical -- diisononyl phthalate -- ingested by small children "does not even come close to a harmful level."However, the commission said that about 90 percent of all manufacturers using the chemical as a softener have said they will remove it from rattles and teethers by early next year.
"As a precaution, parents of young children who mouth these products for long periods of time may wish to dispose of them," the commission said.
"Few children, if any, are at risk," Ronald Medford, the commission's assistant executive director for hazard identification and reduction, told The Washington Post, which first disclosed the situation. "But given the number of uncertainties, we are -- as a precaution -- asking the toy industry to take certain steps to reformulate their products intended to go into children's mouths."
The safety commission said high doses of phthalates have been linked in laboratory studies to cancer in mice and rats. They also are a suspected source of liver and kidney damage in laboratory animals. But the commission said that scientists do not agree "about whether the cancer risk translates to humans."
The commission said that most pacifiers and nipples do not contain the chemical but that parents should immediately discard the Clear and Soft lines made by Gerber Products Co. It said no other Gerber products, including other types of pacifiers and nipples, are involved because they do not contain the chemical.
Some major retailers, including Kmart and Toys R Us, have already begun pulling plastic teething toys made with pthalate from their shelves.
"We've just been looking at the research and reading up on it," Kmart spokeswoman Michele Jasukaitis said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We are going forward in the interest of our customer safety."
Jasukaitis said Kmart would continue to monitor other products containing pthalate, including those that might not be explicitly for teething but could end up in the mouths of young children anyway.
Toys R Us, the world's largest retailer of children's products, promised last month to have the teething toys off its shelf by Nov.18.
The commission said Sears, Roebuck and Co., Wal-Mart Stores and Target Stores also have announced plans to remove phthalate teethers and rattlers from their shelves.
Several toy manufacturers, including Mattel Inc., Walt Disney Co. and Little Tikes Co., have said they plan to phase out use of the additive.
Environmental groups had asked the commission to ban the chemical ingredient and issue an advisory to parents on its dangers.
At least seven European governments have banned the use of phthalates in certain toys that commonly are put in children's mouths.