Report: High levels of lead found in fidget spinners
Courtesy: U.S. PIRG Education Fund
TAMPA (FOX 13) - High levels of lead have been found in one of the more popular gadgets this year: fidget spinners.
In recent lab results, the U.S. PIRG Education Fund found two fidget spinners sold at Target have “extremely high levels of lead.” The advocacy group requested Target and its developer, Bulls i Toys, LLC to recall the products and investigate the how lead seeped into them.
The two fidget spinners containing the lead are, “Fidget Wild Premium Spinner Brass,” and “Fidget Wild Premium Spinner Metal.”
According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, lead's toxicity resulted in its ban in household paints and products marketed to children in 1978. Exposure to children is damaging because it can impact development, and any amount of lead in a child’s blood is unsafe. It can affect nearly every body system.
U.S. PIRG also called on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to reclassify fidget spinners as toys, rather than its current category of general use products. The organization argues that the two fidget spinners are marketed towards children. On Target’s website, the “Fidget Wild Premium Spinner Bass” is recommended for ages 14 and over, as well as, 6 and over.
CPSC could hold the products to federal standards for lead if classified as a toy. Children products must not contain more than 100 parts per million (ppm) of total lead in "accessible parts," according to federal requirements.
In the report, the lab results were tested twice to confirm the results. For the "Fidget Wild Premium Spinner Brass," the center circle tested for 33,000 ppm of lead, and the arm tested for 22,000 ppm of lead. The center circle of the "Fidget Wild Premium Spinner Metal" was tested for 1,300 ppm of lead and the arm tested for 520 ppm of lead.
While U.S. PIRG notified the CPSC, the agency held firm that the fidget spinners are not toys.
In the meantime, U.S. PIRG still recommends for adults and children to stop using the fidget spinners. The report did not address whether there have been any injuries after a product purchase.