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Group lists 10 worst toys for kids
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BOSTON (AP) — A light-up bow whose arrows are advertised as flying up to 145 feet and the “Catapencil” — a pencil with a miniature slingshot-style launcher on its end — are on an annual list of unsafe toys released Wednesday by a Massachusetts-based consumer watchdog group.World Against Toys Causing Harm, or W.A.T.C.H., issued the “10 Worst Toys” list to remind parents and consumers of the potential hazards in some toys as the holiday shopping season gets underway.Organizers, who have been compiling the lists for over four decades, said the toys singled out this year are representative of some of the typical problems they come across and aren’t the only potentially dangerous products on the market.“It’s not so much about the specific toys. It’s about the hazards,” James Swartz, the group’s director, said at a news conference at the Franciscan Hospital for Children.Many toys, he said, continue to have the same hazardous designs, including small, detachable parts that infants can choke on; strings that can cause strangulation; dangerous projectiles; and misleading or confusing warning labels and instructions.“There’s no reason, after all these years, we should have toys like this,” Swartz said as the group displayed each of the ten toys. “We shouldn’t be finding these things for manufacturers.