Consumer Reports says that Fisher-Price has finished testing another toy blood pressure cuff and have found that it exceeds the Illinois lead limit for toys.
Quality & Safety
By 12.20.07
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RECALLS: Royal Seafood Baza Inc. Dried Roach (botulism), Top Line Specialty Produc Green Paradise label” Fresh Italian basil (salmonella), Specialty Merchandise Corporation Snowman And Christmas Tree Candles (fire), DEWALT Cordless Drills (fire), Remington and McQuay “ComfortPac” Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps (fire).
House Votes 407-0 To Ban Lead In Toys And Increase CPSC's Funding
By 12.20.07
Today the House of Representatives unanimously approved H.R. 4040, the Consumer Product Safety Commission Modernization Act of 2007, that virtually eliminates lead from children’s toys (down to 100 parts per million by 2012) and increases the funding of the CPSC. A Senate committee approved its own version of an anti-lead/pro-CPSC bill in October, but it hasn’t reached a floor vote yet—so sometime (early?) next year a final bill should be hammered out to send to the White House. Unless, of course, the lead toy furor disappears after Christmas.
By 12.19.07
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RECALLS: Victoria’s Secret Stuffer Bear (choking), Discount School Supply Giant Measuring Chart (lead), AAFES “Soldier Bear” Toys (lead), Honda Walk-Behind Lawn Mowers (laceration), Bombardier Ski-Doo® Model Year 2008 MXZ X 600 RS Snowmobiles (crashing),
By 12.19.07
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If you have babies visiting you this holiday season, don’t let them sleep on air mattresses, says the CPSC. They’ve received several reports of suffocation deaths because the mattresses can be too soft for infants. The same goes for waterbeds, although if you have a waterbed then you’re probably living in 1982 and this blog hasn’t been invented yet. [CPSC]
The Year's Top Business Screw-Ups
By 12.19.07
Fortune recently published a list of 2007’s 101 Dumbest Moments in Business, and then the Seattle Post-Intelligencer cooked that down to just 9 really good ones. Now we’re summarizing the Seattle PI article. (If you’d like to play along, pick just a couple of business blunders from our summary and write them on a sticky note—we’d like to get this down to a six-word fortune cookie by December 31st.) Some of the Seattle PI’s picks include the rats at the KFC in NYC, the GHB toy beads, Best Buy’s in-store kiosk version of its website with higher prices, Jay-Z’s dog-fur coats, and that time when SkyWest wouldn’t let that passenger pee, and so he had to go in an air-sickness bag, which led to him being questioned by the police when he finally got off the plane.
By 12.18.07
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Recalls: Gorilla Full Body Safety Harnesses (falling), Specialized Bicycle Helmets (not safe enough), Queso Fresco Cheese (listeria), Barrilito candy syrup (lead), Snapps Ferry Packing Ground Beef (E.Coli).
Meat Industry Discovers Consumers' Trust Has Eroded
By 12.18.07
The meat and poultry industries have learned that if you poison your customers enough times, they’ll eventually start losing trust in you—although, oddly, they won’t change their purchasing habits. That’s the takeaway from a study carried out by Meatingplace.com (snicker) and “its sister publication POULTRY” (ha ha WHERE’S CHRIS HANSON). However, no description of the study is provided other than that Zoomerang.com was used, so we’re not sure if the results are at all meaningful. We’re just glad the meat industry is starting to notice something’s wrong.
By 12.18.07
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British retailer John Lewis is selling the world’s most unintentionally disturbing baby bathtub ever. At least we hope it’s unintentional. [BoingBoing]
By 12.17.07
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Whole Foods is recalling its 365 Organic Everyday Value™ Swiss Milk Chocolate Bars with Rice Crisps, 3-ounce size, with a Best If Used By date of 11/21/07, because the batch may contain undeclared hazelnuts, walnuts, and pecans. [FDA]
NPR Tests A Toy Safety Text Message Service
By 12.17.07
NPR went to a local Walmart to test a new toy safety search that works via text message, and while the shoppers there were definitely interested in being able to retrieve chemical test results right there in the store—the service didn’t work very well in practice.
22 Children Died Toy-Related Deaths In 2006
By 12.16.07
Toy injuries were responsible for 22 deaths and 220,500 emergency room visits in 2006, according to a report from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The report looked at injuries affecting children under 15 and found that most deaths were caused by asphyxiation or collisions associated with riding toys, scooters, toy pegs, and rubber balls.
Peter Pan Driver Idles Bus For Thirty Minutes To Punish Passengers Who Complained About Swerving
By 12.15.07
A Peter Pan bus driver took revenge on passengers who complained about his unsafe driving by refusing to let anyone off the bus while making an unexpected thirty minute stop in Framingham, MA. One angry passenger who noticed the driver’s erratic swerving, Brian Moore, blogged about his experience as a surprise hostage on the trip from New York to Boston.
AutoZone Recalls 140,000 Booster Cables
By 12.15.07
AutoZone is recalling 140,000 faulty Valucraft booster cables because the clamps were assembled incorrectly, “resulting in reverse polarity and causing an electrical shock and explosion hazard,” according to the CPSC. The official statement says that “AutoZone has received reports of four incidents of reverse polarity that resulted in minor property damage.”
Toyota Recalling 15,600 2007 Tundra Pickup Trucks
By 12.14.07
Toyota has announced that it is recalling 15,600 Tundra 2007 Tundra four-wheel-drive pickup trucks because “a rear propeller shaft may separate at the joint.”
By 12.14.07
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Kids who spin yo-yo waterballs around their heads can get them wrapped around their necks, leading to tales of temporary blindness, blackouts, and neck scars. Today New Jersey voted 71-to-7 to ban sales of the toy. [Newsday]
By 12.14.07
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The CEO of Toys “R” Us tells the AP that all this testing of toys by advocacy groups is frustrating: “We’ve had many, many cases where we have taken the products and retested them and found them to be totally safe.” Stupid advocacy groups! The toy store will protect us! [Associated Press]
