About a month ago, the Center for Environmental Health announced that they’d found high levels of lead in an unrecalled Curious George toy. The manufacturer, Marvel, refused to recall the doll because they said they needed to confirm the tests.

“If we find a problem, we will do a recall, it’s the only appropriate thing to do,” a Marvel spokesperson said.

Unfortunately for consumers, there was a problem, but now Marvel says that the 175,000 lead-tainted toys were only sold from December 2005 through August 2007, two months before the Center for Environmental Health tested the Curious George doll.

This seemed just a bit strange to us because the Center for Environmental Health claimed that the toy had been recently purchased at Toys R Us at the time that they announced their results. We asked Caroline Cox, Research Director for the Center, if Marvel was recalling the same doll she tested. Caroline told us in an email that the doll had the same SKU, and that the Center had purchased their dolls on October 1.

Even the AP is reporting that the dolls weren’t for sale when the Center for Environmental Health purchased and tested theirs:

The dolls went on sale in 2005, though the company said it stopped producing them that December and ran out of inventory last August.

Could it be that Marvel wants to avoid answering questions about why they refused to pull the doll from shelves after the Center’s tests?

We asked the Ms. Cox what the Center thought of the recalls.

“We’re glad to see Marvel’s action, but it should have happened before Curious George was in children’s hands, not after,” she said.

Curious George Plush Dolls Recalled By Marvel Toys Due to Risk of Lead Exposure [CPSC]
Health Group Takes Action to Get the Lead Out of Toys [CEH]
Marvel recalling plush ‘Curious George’ dolls [CNNMoney]

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