The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is working on the development of mandatory standards to deal with heavy and toxic metals in children’s products—especially the ones imported from China—and on testing protocols and lab accreditation rules for regulated children’s products.

In a taped keynote speech that was delivered Jan. 12 to regulators at the APEC Toy Safety Initiative/Dialogue in Hong Kong, CPSC chairman Inez Tenenbaum warned against the use of heavy metals, “especially cadmium,” in children’s products. While praising the removal of lead in children’s products, Tenenbaum encouraged manufactures in China to refrain from substituting cadmium, antimony, or barium in place of lead.

“All of us should be committed to keeping hazardous or toxic levels of heavy metals out of surface coatings and substrates of toys and children’s products,” she says.

Later in the speech, Tenenbaum noted that “Voluntary efforts will only take us so far.”

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