New research published this month in the Injury Prevention Journal has found recalled toys and children's products are being sold on a daily basis through the popular auction website eBay.

Amongst the toys are six Fisher Price body jumper suits, five Spin Master water rocket toys and 11 Simmons cribs.

The news comes in the same week toy manufacturing giant Mattel recalled almost two million toys on sale in Ireland and Britain because of the danger posed by small magnets and lead paint. In the last month, Mattel has been forced to withdraw more than 18 million magnetic toys globally, after hundreds of reports in the US of magnets coming loose.

However, according to Keri Brown Kirschman, from the University of Dayton in Ohio, the threat ranges far beyond any one brand or product. In her report, 'Resale of recalled children's products online:

an examination of the world's largest yard sale', Kirschman found there were a variety of children's items for sale, from cribs to baby walkers to stuffed animals, all of which had been officially recalled.

"One of the biggest problems in relation to this is that a lot of the products had been recalled years ago. For example, I found a McDonalds Happy Meal toy from 1992.

That's my concern about this recent recall from Mattel:

everyone will remember it now. . . but in five years most of those toys will probably still be in circulation and some of them will be sold online because no one will know any better." According to Kirschman's research, in the US alone 60 million units of child products have been recalled in 10 years. However, only 1618% of recalled products are returned to the manufacturer. The market is awash with dangerous toys.

"Most of the time, it's parents selling the recalled toys to other parents and it seemed very much to be simply a case of not knowing."

Kirschman searched the eBay auction listings for a random selection of 150 recalled items taken from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission lists from 1992-2004. All the products chosen were associated with a hazard that could result in a fatality. Some of the products had, in fact, been recalled because of child fatalities.

Kirschman found 144 auctions containing a recalled product, and a further 46 that had a high probability of being recalled items (in these cases, there wasn't sufficient information to be certain).

Several of the items were from recalls released more than five years previously, confirming Kirschman's fear that children's products can recirculate many years after initial production. Also, the sellers of the items were mostly "experienced and reputable dealers" who had been members of eBay for an average of nearly three years and had participated, either as a seller or a buyer, in an average of nearly 200 auctions.

The sellers were located all over the world: in Ireland, the UK, Australia, Canada and 39 states in the US. According to Kirschman, this wide dissemination of products actually complicates the issue further because there are no international laws regarding the resale of recalled products . . . and no mechanisms by which to alert consumers of faulty products.

While eBay does have an official policy prohibiting the sale of recalled products, Kirschman said that a multidirectional approach is needed to deal with the problem.

"Parents really do need to be more aware of what items have been recalled, " she said.

"Also, I think sellers need to be making more information available with the product, such as the code, a detailed product description or the date the item was produced . . .

whatever information is necessary to determine whether it is a recalled item. Also, the auction site itself could do more to raise awareness of the sale of recalled items, and enforce its policy."