UPDATE: Target: No Plans To Remove Bleeding Rock-A-Stacks

This is David. David’s mouth started turning blue after he began playing with the Fisher-Price Rock-A-Stack toy.

You know the toy, it’s that yellow pole with the stackable colored rings. It’s a classic from a trusted brand, which is why his uncle Dan picked it off the shelf at Target.

“We gave it to him and it took about maybe 10 minutes before it got to the blue ring. He was playing with all the other ones and eventually he got a hold of the blue one and was spinnin’ it like a steering wheel in his hand. And you could just see like it just comin’ off on his hands. And then from his mouth. You’re seeing blue around his mouth and that’s what drew our attention to him. We looked over and we noticed his lips were turning blue. And we were like, “Uh oh.” And they started yelling at me, “Oh, what did you give him?” I said, “It’s a toy from Fisher Price… I assumed it was fine. I’m sorry.” The ring’s blue dye seeped onto David’s hands, the pole, the other rings, and the rug, pictured at left.

He’s not alone. A few one-star Amazon.com reviews concur, and there’s similar tales in reviews on other toy sites.

One mother started Rock-a-stackbluering.blogspot.com to document getting a refund from Fisher-Price.

“After scrubbing the blue ring for a couple of minutes there was still blue dye coming off. My hands and arm had blue dye on the that took a couple of days to come off of my skin,” Jen wrote. The picture at left was taken a few days after first contact.

Customers say that Fisher-Price has told them the dye is non-toxic, and refunded or replaced the ring when they complained. The online complaints seem to start in Spring ’09. Not all the complaints mention where it was bought, but those that do say Target.

However, Dan wasn’t satisfied with a refund. He wanted Fisher-Price to pay for the stained rug. After escalating to the executive office, they agreed to pay for it, but also wanted him to sign a gag agreement saying that he will never talk about the incident ever again. He’s thinking about it. “I do want the rug replaced and I don’t know any other way about going about it,” he said.

David’s father Joseph said it wasn’t about the money or the rug for him. “Our concern is in children safety,” he wrote via email. “Even if non-toxic, this dye can not be good in a baby’s eyes, which is my son’s favorite place to put them when he is tired, or internally when digested. Besides that, the amount that bled off this toy was unreal, I had never seen anything like that, and was horrified to think other parents may have to go through the jolt of this alarming event.”

Requests for comment from Fisher-Price haven’t been returned. There has been no recall of this annoyingly defective product.

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