Time to get nervous, parents! The Washington Post’s Lyndsey Layton looks at a report released by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group on toy safety with the holiday shopping season coming up. PIRG sent fifteen toy products to an independent testing facility and four were found to have excessive levels of lead. Two had an excessive amount of phthalates, a family of chemicals that the law to revamp the Consumer Product Safety Commission last year actually banned.

Indeed, this annual look at toy safety comes after Congress passed a law that gave CPSC significantly more resources and regulatory power. But maybe the most important provision of that law does not go into effect until February: making toy companies get their products tested at independent labs. That means that through the holiday season toy makers and retailers are on the honor system.

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