The California Assembly has approve a bill to limit the amount of lead that could be used in products designed for young children.

The measure by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, a Democrat from San Francisco, was sent to the state Senate on Thursday by a 56-6 vote.

Starting in 2012, the bill would ban products designed for children 12 years and younger if they contained more than 100 parts per million of lead.

Childhood exposure to lead has been linked to decreased intelligence, short-term memory loss, reading problems, limited vocabulary, lack of fine-motor skills and health problems, including cancer.