2024-10-01 02:11:53
A robot presented during the China Beijing International High-tech Expo in Beijing in 2017. JASON LEE / REUTERS
Warning on some LED toys. According to the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES), the European standard on toy safety does not currently guarantee eye protection for children, which requires its revision.
Many of these objects – stuffed animals, dolls, drawing tablets, trucks, spinning tops or even luminous board games – contain LEDs, which emit blue light. This light can affect the retina and disrupt biological rhythms, including sleep, if exposed in the evening and at night.
“Children whose eyes do not fully filter blue light are particularly sensitive to these risks”, underlines, in a press release, ANSESrecalling that it has been warning about the effects of LEDs on vision since 2010.
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Requested by the French Ministry of Health, ANSES examined the new version of the European standard on the safety of electric toys, updated in 2020. After examining the new protocol for verifying the eye safety of toys containing LED, she concludes that “the revised version does not guarantee compliance with the limit values ensuring the protection of children’s eyes”.
ANSES has identified “several errors” in the scientific study on which the protocol is based, errors “which can cause toys declared compliant to exceed exposure limit values”according to the press release.
More toys would have failed with the 2005 standard
She also carried out tests on a sample of nineteen LEDs contained in toys available on the market. They have “confirmed that the 2020 version of the standard is less protective than the previous one, from 2005: eight of the toys tested could not have been placed on the market with the 2005 version of the standard, due to exceeding safety requirements, compared to just one with that of 2020”details the agency.
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“Given the health issues associated with the exposure of children to excessively high levels of blue light and the importance of the standard to guarantee the safety of the toys sold”ANSES recommends initiating ” quickly “ a revision of the relevant section of European regulations. In the meantime, she recommends a temporary return to the 2005 version to check the eye safety of the toys in question.
To protect children from these risks, ANSES also reminds that it is advisable to limit exposure to blue or white LEDs, and to avoid luminous toys two hours before bedtime, so as not to disrupt biological rhythms and falling asleep.
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