You will be shocked at all the loop-holes given by the government to industrial chemicals to avoid safety regulation and accurate labeling.
Bisphenol A, parabens, phthalates, formaldehyde, and on and on. Do they expect us all to be chemists? I’m a chemist and even I don’t want make every trip to the store a research project. Why not just provide a simple label like “nontoxic” that we can look for? Surely it is illegal to put a nontoxic label on products containing known toxic or carcinogenic substances—especially on children’s products. Not so. And we all should know how we got into this mess.
Until the 1980s, even asbestos was a common ingredient in many products including children’s art materials. For example, one product was a powdered papier-mâché product for children marketed by Milton Bradley. It contained about 50 percent asbestos powder. Called FibroClay, the asbestos-containing product had a nontoxic approved product (AP) seal on it from the organization known today as the Arts and Creative Materials Institute (ACMI).