Why I’d Throw Out Every Squishy Toy in Your House TODAY — Transcript

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1. 0:00My son came home with one of these last
2. 0:01week. One of these squishy butter toys
3. 0:04that are everywhere right now. And
4. 0:06because I spend my time in the lab
5. 0:08looking at research, I did what any
6. 0:10curious parent and longevity researcher
7. 0:13would do. I looked at the actual
8. 0:15toxicology testing behind these things.
9. 0:18What I found was absolutely horrendous.
10. 0:21If your kids got one of these sitting in
11. 0:22their bedroom right now, you are going
12. 0:24to want to bin this before this video is
13. 0:26even finished. Let's start with benzene.
14. 0:29This is not a maybe it's a bit dodgy
15. 0:32chemical. Benzene is a classified human
16. 0:35carcinogen, full stop. UK trading
17. 0:38standards tested the popular squeezy
18. 0:40dumpling toys and they found benzene
19. 0:43levels of 20 mg per kilo in the outer
20. 0:46layer.
21. 0:48The legal safety limit is five.
22. 0:50That's a four times over the line in a
23. 0:53toy sold specifically for kids to
24. 0:56squeeze in their hands for hours.
25. 0:58Councils across the UK have now seized
26. 1:01and destroyed thousands of these toys.
27. 1:04Then there's a second chemical almost no
28. 1:05one's heard of. Dimethylformamide
29. 1:08or DMF. In your body, DMF gets absorbed
30. 1:12straight through the skin. No digestion
31. 1:14is required and once it's in, it's
32. 1:16processed by your liver. It's been
33. 1:18linked to liver toxicity, to nausea, to
34. 1:20vomiting, even to constipation at higher
35. 1:22levels. It's been classified as toxic to
36. 1:25reproduction.
37. 1:26Now, the Danish Environmental Protection
38. 1:29Agency tested 12 different squishy toys.
39. 1:33Not one, not some, 12 out of 12 came
40. 1:37back with unacceptably high levels of
41. 1:39DMF alongside two other solvents,
42. 1:42styrene and toluene. The finding was
43. 1:45serious enough that Denmark told its
44. 1:47population to throw every squishy toy
45. 1:50away.
46. 1:51Now, this is generally the kind of
47. 1:53exposure pathway that I like to look at
48. 1:55in my research. I'm doing a PhD
49. 1:56investigating the mechanisms that drive
50. 1:58aging at the cellular level, where
51. 2:00things like oxidative stress and DNA
52. 2:02damage. And industrial solvents like
53. 2:05these are exactly the kinds of compounds
54. 2:07that push those pathways in the wrong
55. 2:09direction over a lifetime of exposure.
56. 2:12So, if this is the kind of thing you'd
57. 2:13like to learn about, hit the subscribe
58. 2:15button. And if you want to support the
59. 2:16research I do in this channel, there's a
60. 2:18premium option there, too. Now, here's
61. 2:20the part that almost nobody is talking
62. 2:22about, and it's arguably worse than the
63. 2:24benzene and the DMF combined. These toys
64. 2:28are made of polyurethane foam.
65. 2:31And getting that foam soft enough to
66. 2:34squish and slow enough to rise back into
67. 2:37its shape normally means plasticizers,
68. 2:40chemicals that function as hormone
69. 2:42disruptors in your body. When the Danish
70. 2:45regulators, they tested a separate batch
71. 2:47of squishy-style toys, many of them came
72. 2:50back with phthalate concentrations high
73. 2:52enough to pose a genuine health risk to
74. 2:55children under three with repeated
75. 2:57exposure. Precisely because the
76. 2:59phthalates aren't chemically bound to
77. 3:01the plastic, they can leach straight out
78. 3:04with warmth and with pressure, exactly
79. 3:07what squeezing a toy in a small, sweaty
80. 3:10hand is going to do.
81. 3:12Then, there's the color itself. To get
82. 3:15that bright, saturated,
83. 3:18fluorescent kind of shade, unregulated
84. 3:21dye batches have historically turned up
85. 3:23containing heavy metals with high
86. 3:25exposures, things like lead and cadmium.
87. 3:28And the EU has taken this seriously
88. 3:30enough that its new toy safety
89. 3:32regulation, published in December last
90. 3:35year, has halved the allowable migration
91. 3:37limits for lead, cadmium, chromium, and
92. 3:40mercury in toys, specifically mandating
93. 3:43proper toxicology assessment of the
94. 3:45organic compounds these squishy toys
95. 3:48give off.
96. 3:49But, the regulation, it only catches the
97. 3:52toys that it actually tests. And that
98. 3:55brings me back to why it looks worse,
99. 3:57why it is worse, only than it looks.
100. 3:59Trading standard teams across the UK
101. 4:01have found something else hidden
102. 4:03underneath this, which is a flood of
103. 4:06counterfeit versions of these kinds of
104. 4:08toys, cheaper knockoffs rushed out to
105. 4:11cash in on this fad with zero safety
106. 4:15testing behind them. No UKCA mark, no
107. 4:18ingredients disclosures, no warnings,
108. 4:20nothing. And because toy manufacturers
109. 4:23currently aren't even required to
110. 4:25disclose what chemical compounds goes
111. 4:27into these things, you generally cannot
112. 4:30tell a compliant toy from a dangerous
113. 4:32one by looking at it. So, think about
114. 4:34how your kids actually using these
115. 4:36things, squeezing it for hours, holding
116. 4:38it in hands, sweating against that warm
117. 4:41plastic, increasing how much of any
118. 4:43given chemical can leech through the
119. 4:45skin. Younger kids putting it straight
120. 4:48in their mouth cuz it's got that kind of
121. 4:50chewy texture to it. Every one of these
122. 4:52is a direct route into the body for
123. 4:54benzene, DMF, phthalates, and even the
124. 4:56heavy metals in the dyes. My honest
125. 4:58advice with this one is, you've got one
126. 4:59of those in your house, get rid of it.
127. 5:01Not because every single squishy toy in
128. 5:03the world is contaminated, but because
129. 5:05right now there's no reliable way to
130. 5:07discern which ones are and which ones
131. 5:09aren't. And sometimes the most
132. 5:11research-backed decision is the easiest
133. 5:13one. Get rid of it and eliminate the