Parent's Power of Persuasion

Today while making monster masks, I let the children use feathers to decorate their masks. One small child, Elliot, would NOT touch the feathers. I kept just saying that everybody was getting their masks done so much faster and that he needed to get to work. Finally I went over and asked him WHY he wasn't gluing the feathers on the mask. He said to me, in an alarmed voice almost to tears, "Bird feathers are poisonous!" He was sincerely concerned that all the other kids in the class were now going to die from feather poisoning or something. At this point I had a decision to make. Do I tell him the truth that whoever told him that was lying, or keeping in mind that it was probably his mother telling him this, do I play along? I decided the latter would be my best bet, and proceeded to lie right to his face. I said, "Well, Elliot, THESE feathers went to the factory and were cleaned so all the germs are off them and then they put on this special antidote to the poison on it so we can touch them without dieing."