A sticky chemical that oozes from the plastic used in very old Barbie dolls and some other toys poses a potential health risk, according to an expert in the science of preservation.
Yvonne Shashoua of the National Museum of Denmark said Wednesday that some dolls and other toys made in the 1950s with polyvinyl chloride are deteriorating rapidly and forming a sticky film on their plastic surfaces.
But after 58 years of restoring and selling dolls, Salt Lake City doll expert Mary Davidson doesn't know what all the fuss is about. "Some of them darken a little," Davidson said, "but I've never heard that before about the chemical. We've got a lot of them."
Shashoua told the American Chemical Society this week that certain PVC toys, after about 15 years, can weep a chemical that was used in a plastic molding process that European studies have linked to potential health hazards.
She said the gooey film is potentially troublesome for children who might get it on their fingers and then lick them, getting the stuff into their bodies. The European studies suggest that the chemical involved can mimic estrogen and cause development problems in young children.
But Davidson, who co-owns Davidson's Antiques & Doll Hospital at 2804 S. State, is skeptical that very many really old Barbies are in the hands of youngsters.
"Most of them are collectibles," she said. "I don't think any kids are playing with the original Barbies. I think that the older ones are in boxes or cases and places where people don't let their kids play with them."
Davidson said that if a doll is kept in a case it seems unlikely to her that it would be a hazard of any sort. She also said she's never seen a Barbie's surface ooze any type of sticky substance.
Barbie made her debut in 1 959. Davidson said that if there had been problems, they probably would have been discovered long before now. "Don't you think that if there had been a lot of that, something would have come out before this? I just don't understand it," Davidson said.
Mattel, the maker of Barbie, and other toy manufacturers stopped using this particular chemical long ago, Shashoua said, so only the really old PVC toys could be a problem.
However, collectors who cherish their Barbie dolls often run into problems preserving the keepsakes.
Shashoua recommended keeping the older dolls in a cool, dark place, not wrapping them in plastic and not cleaning them.
Barbie has been a massive money-maker for Mattel and currently is a $1.9 billion product line. The original line of Caucasian blonde and brunette pony-tailed Barbies has been expanded to include Barbies of many ethnic groups, professions and skills. The Barbie line is accompanied by a family of younger sisters and her perennial boyfriend, Ken. There also are Barbies modeled after celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor, Lucille Ball and Britney Spears.
Vintage Barbies offered on the e-Bay Internet auction site show a wide array of prices, from fairly small sums to $2,000 for vintage and unique-collectible dolls still in their original boxes.
Collecting Barbies is clearly big: the Web site (www.barbie.com) offers hundreds of dolls, including the "collector's edition," a "limited edition," a "timeless treasures" and a "children's collection."
There is also an Official Barbie Collectors Club 2000 individuals can join for $39.99, which provides a special members-only Barbie outfit, a personalized membership card, the Barbie Insider Quarterly Newsletter, a binder to hold the newsletters and a membership pin shaped like one of Barbie's high-heeled shoes.
E-MAIL: lindat@desnews.com
Contributing: The Associated Press