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In a gesture to assuage China’s injured pride in advance of an on-site visit by the CEO, Mattel apologized to China for the “design flaws” responsible for most of this summer’s toy recalls. [AP]
chinese poison train
By 9.21.07
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The state of California recalled 56,000 children’s lunchboxes over lead concerns. The lunchboxes had been distributed by the Health Department to promote healthy eating. [AP]
Target, Limited Too and Dollar General Quietly Pulling Lead Contaminated Items Off Shelves
By 9.19.07
According to the NYT, Target, Limited Too and Dollar General have located additional products that are contaminated with lead, but no recalls have been announced by the CPSC.
Liveblogging The House Energy And Commerce Subcommittee Hearing On Toy Safety
By 9.19.07
Parading before you today will be two familiar panels: The first will feature acting Consumer Product Safety Commission Chair Nancy Nord and Commissioner Thomas Moore, who skipped out of last week’s hearing for a dentists appointment. The second will be devoted solely to Mattel CEO Robert Eckert.
Hey, Why Aren't Your Toys Made In China?
By 9.18.07
The New York Times took a look at some European toy makers who decided to let the Chinese Poison Train pass them by. Why didn’t they outsource their manufacturing to China?
EU May Ban Chinese Toys After October
By 9.17.07
China’s toy imports make up more than half the toy market in the EU, and apparently their lax safety record hasn’t escaped the grim, existential gaze of Europe. Meglena Kuneva, an EU commissioner, put it quite bluntly in front of the EU’s internal market and consumer protection committee last week: “This is the last warning. If there’s an unsatisfactory report in October we will [impose] the next layer of measures. Among them is a ban on products,” which the Associated Press reports could include toys.
Toy Prices To Rise 10%
By 9.15.07
Toys will be 10% more expensive next year thanks the toy industry’s latest attempts to protect American children from defective merchandise. Toy makers will use the hike to offset the cost of retaining independent labs to both test for defective and dangerous toys, and provide a measure of PR security.
Consumers could also see higher prices on other Chinese imports such as fish and children’s apparel, but the big price gains in toys could be more jolting.
China Appoints Tough Anti-Poison Czar
By 9.15.07
Meet Wu Yi. The 68-year old Vice Premier, the highest ranking woman in the Communist Party, has been tasked with one mission: toss the Chinese Poison Train back into the rapidly industrializing nation’s toy-chest.
Design Flaws In Toys Cause Far More Injuries Than Lead
By 9.12.07
Lead isn’t what you need to watch out for with American toys—it’s design flaws and the policies of irresponsible toy companies, says E. Marla Felcher on Slate. One study “recently found that of all the toys recalled since 1988, 76 percent involved design flaws. Kids choked, were strangled, and were burned by toy makers’ design mistakes.”
The reason so many toys were recalled this summer is not that there weren’t enough regulations. It’s that toy makers were ignoring the regulations that are already on the books. And the new testing proposal won’t stop them from continuing to do so.
Mattel, Lead, Congress, Matthew 19:24
By 9.12.07
Testifying before congress today, Mattel CEO Robert Eckert demonstrated the size of the aperture it’s easier for a camel to pass through than for a lead toy manufacturer to get into heaven. [NYT]
Liveblogging The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Hearing On Toy Safety
By 9.12.07
Today is a big day for Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). Starting at 11am, the Chairman of the powerful Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government will kick off a series of hearings examining the toy industry’s seemingly magnetic attraction to lead paint. Durbin, whose Subcommittee has jurisdiction over the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s budget, will grill toy industry representatives, consumer advocates, and members of the government over plans to protect America’s children from the dangers silently lurking on toy shelves by establishing an independent testing regime.
By 9.10.07
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A family in Hainan, China worried that it had a tainted bottle of water on its hands, so it gave the water to a pet chicken; the chicken died “within a minute.” We smell a new export opportunity here for Chinese manufacturers—your very own house chicken to peck out any tainted toys, toothpaste, or pet food. And maybe it can sniff the popcorn, too. Reuters already made a chicken-choking joke, so we’ll pass. [Reuters]
U.S. & China Meet To Discuss Product Safety
By 9.10.07
Today begins the Sino-US Consumer Product Safety Summit, “an effort to sooth the black eyes that China and the U.S. are sporting after months of revelations that China is sending tainted products to the U.S. and the federal government has been doing little about it,” writes Dennis Rockstroh on his San Jose Mercury News blog.
Critics Say Consumer Agency Needs Complete Overhaul
By 9.6.07
The CPSC is understaffed and underfunded, and it needs a complete overhaul of its mission if it’s to be effective at all in protecting US consumers, says Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D):
“The laws are written sadly in a way to make it next to impossible to protect consumers. 401 (CPSC) employees today trying to manage trillions of dollars in products … they do not have enough cops on the beat.”
Washington D.C. Gives Away Uncool, Defective Condoms
By 9.5.07
We’re sure that Washington D.C. meant well when it started giving away free condoms in order to help stop the spread of H.I.V. in the US city with the highest AIDS rate. One problem: The condoms suck.
By 9.5.07
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Accessory Toys (lead), Fisher Price Big Big World 6-in-1 Bongo Band toys (lead), Fisher-Price Recalls Geo Trax Locomotive Toys (lead), NettoCollection “Moderne” and “Loft” Cribs (entrapment, strangulation), d-Scan Jubee Bunk Beds (collapse). Mattel’s CEO appeared in a new apology video, featuring shots of people in lab coats going through the motions of testing toys (we like how the guy in the beginning nods his head as he writes down a figure, nice lil piece of overacting there).
More Mattel Lead Painted Toy Recalls Tomorrow
By 9.4.07
Toy-giant Mattel will recall yet more toys covered in deadly lead-tainted paint, the AP reports.
Over 10,000,000 Items Recalled For Lead Contamination In 2007
By 8.30.07
With the recall of some Thomas & Friends and Sponge Bob toys on August 22, the total number of products recalled due to lead contamination in 2007 reached 10,020,300, according to data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. None of the items were manufactured in the US, so the recall responsibility and cost falls squarely on the shoulders of the US importers. We took at look back at 2007’s lead recalls to try to understand the scope of the problem.
