Children can be exposed to potentially toxic elements present in children’s toys and jewelry through several pathways, with whole ingestion of contaminated articles being the most severe scenario. There is some proof that the problem of contaminated toys and jewelry is recently becoming a more serious issue in developing countries. This may be because effective legislative efforts in developed countries may have caused manufacturers of these items focusing on the markets with less strict legislation and enforcement. However, scientific research on the presence and bioavailability of potentially toxic elements in toys and children’s jewelry region has not yet been conducted in most of the developing countries including the ones in the Central Asian region. The Central Asian market, also being a good representative of some other Asian markets, has the majority of its low-cost consumer goods exported from neighboring manufacturer countries such as the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation. The present ongoing study aims to investigate the problem of contaminated toys and children’s jewelry in Kazakhstan (the largest country in Central Asia) to determine whether there is a serious threat to children’s health resulting from potential exposure to contaminated toys and jewelry. We will first present total concentrations (TCs) of selected heavy metals (As, Cd, and Pb) in toys and children’s jewelry bought on Kazakhstani market as well as some second-hand jewelry, and then discuss the compliance of these items to local as well as to international regulatory limits. We will also conduct bioaccessibility tests (physiologically based in-vitro tests simulating human exposure) on selected items and then perform a preliminary risk characterization to identify chemical health risks in the case of children’s potential exposure to these items. We will discuss the findings for different categories of children’s items such as metallic toys & jewelry and toys with paint or coating. We will provide a statistical investigation of a possible relationship between total metal concentrations and item properties such as color, price, and shop category in order to identify specific properties linked to a higher potential risk. The results will help us to characterize the risk coming from potential exposure to these items and will form a basis for the upcoming stages of the present project, namely the application of modified in-vitro bioaccessibility tests for better estimation of elemental bioavailability for both short- and long-term exposure, and a thorough assessment of chemical risk via an implementation of advanced deterministic and probabilistic tools.

^*This presentation is intended to be the second part of the work to be presented by Prof. Guney’s team on contamination in children’s consumer goods and its potential adverse health outcomes. In this second part, the researcher Ms. Akimzhanova will present the initial findings of their laboratory research on the subject.