New wave of toy recalls over lead

Federal regulators recalled more than 500,000 toys Wednesday because of lead paint, including 200,000 Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway Toys from RC2, the company that began the wave of lead scares with a June recall of 1.5 million trains.

The seven separate lead-paint recalls of Chinese-made toys included hundreds of thousands of products made exclusively for two retailers: Target and Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts. Lead paint also caused problems for playthings and jewelry manufactured abroad by two companies that sell to a wide variety of stores.

Target warned about excessive lead in paint on about 350,000 of its brightly colored Happy Giddy Gardening Tools and Children's Sunny Patch Chairs.

Jo-Ann Stores recalled 16,000 toy rakes because lead in the paint on the rake handles violates federal lead standards.

Toymaker Guidecraft announced the recall of 10,000 Floor Puppet Theaters because surface paints on the 52-inch toy stage also contain excessive lead.

RC2 recalled five Thomas-series train toys and 800 toys from its "Knights of the Sword" series, because three models of action figure showed higher-than-allowed lead content.

Under current regulations, children's products found to have more than .06 percent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.

Two companies also recalled toy jewelry:

• Rhode Island Novelty recalled about 850 Children's Spinning Wheel Metal Necklaces because of high lead levels in the clasps.

• Toby N.Y.C. expanded a recall announced last month of crystal, pearl and wood-bead jewelry sets, adding 23,500 more Toby & Me sets with heart and monkey pendants.

No injuries have been reported in connection with any products recalled Wednesday, federal officials said.

"After the first set of recalls, retailers and manufacturers reported they would take a very systematic inventory to determine whether any of their products were in violation of the lead-paint standard," said Julie Vallese, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission. "These recalls are a result of that inventory."

Vallese added that consumers should expect more recalls.

Lead paint has been banned in the United States since 1978 because of lead's link to brain and neurological problems.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.