In fifty years we will be horrified by the ‘safe’ toys our children play with today

I find it astonishing how quickly scientific knowledge progresses and how rapidly it changes our perception of ‘normal’ product safety. This is particularly relevant in the case of children’s toys. Before they were banned in the 1960s, toy soldiers were made of lead, and prized collections could be found in houses across the country.

Of course, we now know that lead is toxic and that even low levels in a child’s bloodstream may result in reduced IQ, behavioural issues and learning challenges. But at the time, parents would have assumed these toys were safe for their children. 

Over the past 30 years, we have seen significant scientific advances in our understanding of the health and environmental impacts associated with chemical exposure. This includes not just toxic metals such as lead, but also other chemicals that are still widely used in consumer products.

As parents and caregivers, we should be able to trust that the toys we buy for our children won’t harm them. This is a basic expectation, yet history shows that what we don’t know can indeed hurt us. And history might be repeating itself now.

We saw just last week how the Trading Standards removed thousands of fake squishy toys that contain substances such as formaldehyde, solvents and phthalates and may emit strong chemical smells. Unfortunately these chemicals are reaching children covertly or in plain sight.

Online spaces are ablaze with conflicting information about harmful chemicals found in the products we use daily. You may have come across the group of ‘forever chemicals’, known as PFAS (per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances). PFAS have drawn a lot of public attention recently due to their widespread presence in the environment and in humans. Less notorious, yet equally as deserving of our scrutiny, are certain chemicals known as ‘EDCs’, or hormone (endocrine) disrupting chemicals.

The Endocrine Society defines EDCs as ‘chemicals which mimic, block, or interfere with the hormones in the body’s endocrine [hormone] system’. Their non-exhaustive list of the various health impacts associated with EDCs includes reduced fertility, altered nervous system and immune system function, diabetes, neurological and learning disabilities, and certain cancers. 

Worryingly, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), EDCs are particularly harmful to the health of children. Their bodies are still developing and are exposed to mixtures of different EDCs, which can have varying impacts. Exposure in early childhood can have long-lasting or even permanent effects on a child’s health and development. Chemicals with endocrine disrupting properties include certain PFAS, bisphenols, and phthalates.

Concern about EDCs has been growing amongst scientists for decades. A 2026 Netflix documentary titled ‘The Plastic Detox’ explored how exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals in plastics might be contributing to increasing levels of infertility around the globe. 

Yet despite rising concern and growing scientific knowledge, toy regulation is not strong enough to properly protect children from harmful chemicals. Testing conducted in Europe has found bisphenols in toys, including teething toys, dolls, and bath toys. Most bisphenols are still unregulated in the UK. The bisphenol you might have heard of, BPA, has been banned in a few select products, such as baby bottles. Yet, according to the NGO CHEM Trust, BPA is often just substituted with other, unregulated bisphenols which can have similar hormone-disrupting properties. 

In 2024, the Labour Party came to power with a manifesto outlining plans to deepen our relationship with the EU. Last year, the EU introduced key changes to its toy safety regulation, which made vast improvements to children’s protection from harmful chemicals in toys, including EDCs. Our current regulation is the same as the EU’s old toy safety guidance, which the EU Commission deemed unfit for purpose in 2021. 

The UK must take action to ban EDCs in children’s toys, as the EU has already done. In July, I will be hosting a parliamentary event to raise awareness of how our toy safety regulations are lagging behind the science on harmful chemicals. As a nation, we don’t want to look back in fifty years and feel horrified about what our children were being exposed to, as we do now with lead in toy soldiers. History has set out the lesson clearly; now we need to learn from it.

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Ruth Jones is the Labour MP for Newport West and Islwyn

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