Hidden horrors of rubber ducks

Rubber ducks maybe your toddler's favorite... on the inside they're a perfect breeding ground for bacteria and even mushrooms, a new says.

Swiss and American scientists suggest choosing toys with high quality plastics to avoid the risk of skin irritations or gastric problems.

In order to analyze the germ danger, researchers from Zurich and Illinois got bath ducks and floated them in used bath water.


The researchers then cut open all the toys and searched on the inner wall for bacteria and fungi that had settled there.

The result was clear. Inside the plastic animals were between 5 million and 73 million bacteria per square centimeter, the researchers write in their study.

The researchers do not want to ban the toys. But they want stricter regulations on the soft plastic from which they are made.