Walmart should cover all medical bills for victims (especially that they are pulling the produst only now).

140 complaints of BURNS is way too much!!!

How many toys, electronics, etc. get recalled because they MIGHT cause an injury?

So what makes WalMart so special and different from other companies?

Sue them!

Oh, goody! Now we can stop looking for Nazi T-shirts and start looking for toxic flip-flops at our local Wal-Marts. (fires up camera phone....)

I'd better run to wal-mart and grab a few pairs of these so I can cash in on the upcoming class action suit!

@RottNDude:

For your own sake : don't wear them.
(unless you want your feet look like a prop from a horror movie)

this just reinforces the fact that the non-brand name stuff selling at wal-mart is all crap. Just stick to the brand name products they sell there folks.

walmart should charge them extra for the free chevron tattoos they received

jk--this is an awful story

But wait, isn't it the victim's fault? Sounds like Wal-Mart should have taken away the victim's feet instead. THAT woulda showed 'em!

PS: Nazi shirt 60 months and counting. Wanna bet the sandels remain as long. Boy, I hope so: lawsuit city!!

Ok, after this much warning we get about the ever dangerous Walmart flip flop (correct me if I'm in the wrong here) but doesn't that make every new buyer of said flip flops, for lack of better words, stupid?

@rolla:

Or just don't shot at Wal-Mart at all.

@blue_duck: sadly, a Ven diagram representing "Wal-Mart shoppers" and "Consumerist readers" would be a whisker-thin intersection that only the latest US currency printing plates have the needed resolution to display.

How hard would it be to test a flip flop and find out what chemical it's leaching? If it was 1977 I bet someone in the media would have paid $20 to have some chemistry student to run the thing through a spectroscope.

Judging by the way her feet look, the flip flops are the least of her problems...

@blue_duck: You assume that Consumerist is read by everyone (it isn't??) :)
I would think that most of the folks who shop at wallyworld couldn't spell 'Consumerist' let alone operate a web browser (or computer).

Oh Goody!

Another Blame the Victim thread!

And let's make fun of her feet too....snicker!

I hear burn victims dress crappy too.

Ye-Hah!

Wow, this looks like a great way to finally get those warts off my feet!

Okay, that was nasty.... Sorry.

so, let me get this straight...one should always assume that footwear purchased at walmart will horribly burn one's feet...thus the people suffering these wounds are at fault...and it's ok, because they all had ugly feet to begin with...and they're illiterate because they shop at walmart...interesting...i think it's pretty ridiculous for anyone to say that a person going to walmart for footwear is in any way to blame when something is terribly wrong with said footwear...walmart is kind of the devil-i'll give you that, but the people who shop there no less deserve to expect shoes that won't melt their feet than someone who shops at the mall....and i think it's sad that the litigious nature of our present society has caused people to fall so far into the "blame the victim" mentality...call me crazy, but if you pay for shoes there should be a reasonably expectation that your feet won't be hideously scarred in the deal!

Does anyone else think it is far too convenient that they consent to stop selling the flip flops only at the END of flip flop season, when nobody's going to buy them any more anyway?

that's hot!

they just unveiled their new tagline this morning. Save Money. Live Better.

The photo from this article should be their first ad!

@it5five:

That is the simple solution I follow.

It's September. They would pull their flipflops now regardless of complaints.

@MissCellania: I was just about to say the same thing! :)

@mammalpants: YES!

@molasses: Yes.

@blue_duck: There was a post a while back about how most people don't hear about recalls. I also doubt that Wal-mart will be advertising the fact that they're pulling the sandals.

"I just want to know what's in my system," said Stiles.

I wanna know why her feet still haven't healed completely yet. What the heck would do that?

I wanna know why her feet still haven't healed completely yet. What the heck would do that?

Lead, battery acid and the tears of slave labor children.

People shouldnt be wearing flip flops anyway. I'd rather wear crocs than flip flops -_-

@mopar_man: hahahaha.

Thanks for posting the most disgusting SFW pic imaginable.
You are doing wonders for my diet.
GROSS!

@Maurik: i'd rather have chemical burns on my feet than wear or be seen wearing crocs.

I still don't see why Wal Mart should have to pay because some folks have an allergy.

If I have a cotton allergy, it is my responsibility to look at clothing tags and make sure there is no cotton in it. If I have a peanut allergy, I am going to look at the list of ingredients and make sure there are no peanuts. If these sandals did not have any information about what they were made with, the company which produced the product and the company that sold it is at fault.

My guess is that there's some skanky, undisclosed, unusual (as in, banned by the Geneva Convention) chemical that coats the straps that's causing the problem. Typical China/Wal-Mart Poison Train, in other words.

A - Walmart is CHEAP & they want CHEAP goods.
B - the factory that produced these shoes KNOWS what chemicals are on these shoes to produce this (probably diesel fuel or formaldylhyde to remove glue or something else in the process of making the flip flop) and they have informed Walmart

Its not all China's fault here people - there are CORPORATE Americans making the decision here everyday on how products are made in China and approving them.

@E-Bell: It would appear that it's not just allergic reaction.

Those poor feet in the photo above look to have spent some time on a George Foreman Grill, as opposed to some form of allergic outbreak/rash.

Also, I do wonder if it indeed was an allergic reaction would Kerry's feet still be suffering two months after the problem arose?

(I'm not trying to be argumentative at all. It just really does look to me like some type of burn on the feet in the photo)

and yeah, kudos to WalMarx for getting around to pulling the poison-flops just prior to Fall. blech.

@trai_dep: Nice. It'd make a great anti-campaign -- "Buy our new DDT-Flops! They're guaranteed to burn away corns!"

Seriously, how much profit were they looking at pulling down from some toss-away flip-flops? Certainly not enough to have kept them on the shelves this long after reports they were burning people.

Three-Mile Island Flops? Chernobyl Flops that glow in the dark? Oh, the possibilities.

Finally they are getting the flip flops tested, and hopefully Kelley and other victims get some reparations from WM!

@LiC: How many soda companies list all their ingredients?

That was a trick question, because they do list MOST ingredients, but what's in the "secret formula" for Coca-Cola? A friend is allergic to Coke, but not Sprite. Docs told him it was probably due to some unknown ingredient(s) in the "secret formula". Same with perfume. They list some, but not what chemicals they use to make their "secret formula" scent, yet people are allergic to it. Considering Coke has been around since around the 1890's and perfume has been around for longer, you'd think Coke and perfume companies would have been successfully sued for not revealing their secret formula, but that's not the case.

@thepounder: The consensus on the last couple of threads on this topic seemed to be that it looked like contact dermatitis, which is usually caused by an allergic reaction.

The kinds of wounds pictured are an extreme reaction, to be sure, but not unheard of. In fact, if you do an image search for "contact dermatitis," you'll find all kinds of nasty pictures.

Here's the rub: everyone is blaming Wal Mart because everyone loves to blame Wal Mart. At this time, there is not one shred of evidence that Wal Mart did anything wrong. Not one. There has not been one test of these sandals by a "victim," and from what I can tell, there have only been a few cases of this happening (I discount the 140 number cited by the main claimant because it's based on emails people sent to her).

If this is *really* a defective product, then there should be widespread reports of others having this reaction. Furthermore, no one has sued Wal Mart over this. In this day of litigation-run-amok, a real products-liability case like this one purports to be would be covered like flies on shit.

But it's not. No one is beating down Kerry Stiles's door, offering to make her the lead plaintiff in a class action suit over these defective thongs.

This story made Snopes today:

[www.snopes.com]

No reference to consumerist.com though :-(

@E-Bell: How do you know who's beating on Kerry's door?