Toy Scare

Here we go again. Mattel is recalling one million toys, many of which are Elmo- and Dora the Explorer-branded. There are 83 different products involved in the recall, which is due to lead paint from—you guessed it—China. The good news is that more than two-thirds of the toys were pulled from shelves before anyone bought them, but that still leaves about 300,000 toys out there. Yikes. Find out if you have any of the toys involved in the recall at Mattel's site (and take them away form your kids asap!)

Is anyone else getting really demoralized by all of these headlines? It seems like every other day it's lead in the toys... salmonella or e.coli in the food... I feel like the more we look, the more we're going to find. Oy.

Comments

[sheri]

Thanks for posting this. I had just posted about it on my blog too. We have one of the recalled toys and my daughter has chewed paint off of it. I will never buy a fisher price toy again. By the way, they want us to return our toy only to get a voucher for another crappy fisher price toy(non-licensed). Did you know that they also use pvc on a lot of their toys too? I called them and they confirmed that they did. Anything that is flexible was pvc. Their words exactly. If you don't know pvc is a very toxic plastic. Check out http://www.besafenet.com/pvc/

I am one fed up mom!

Sheri

[Ginny]

Between my 6 & 10 year old I own at least half of those products. Luckily they were all purchases before the recall notice. I'm still a bit worried now though. I am so fed up with these China recalls, they are coming from big companies. Scared to buy anything now a days.

[Amy H]

We have SO MANY Dora figures around our house. I have no idea when they were purchased or WHERE or what kind of package they came in!! I'm going to have to throw them all away.

I think it's time to start pushing for new laws. Toy makers hold our kid's lives in their hands with something as simple as paint. They should be more responsible and test these things before they leave their warehouse!!

[Amanda]

Word, guys. If you start thinking about how far-reaching the problem really could be/probably is, it's terrifying. I think it’s going to take even more of an outcry for our government to start passing real laws that really protect us. So let’s make a fuss!!

[Nicole]

We can first stop buying foreign things. I think everyone should start buying only American made items. It has to be hard, I am sure most of everything we buy comes from another country. But I think the only way we can really get our point across is letting their products sit on the shelves.

[AJ]

"Made in the USA" is becoming the new tag line for quality assurance in children's products.

[adrienne]

I strongly recommend the chapter on Wal-Mart from Kate Newlin's book Shopportunity (http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060888404/Shopportunity/index.aspx) to get a full concept of how "bargain" prices and Wal-Mart's corporate policy of demanding items at greater and greater discounts have caused a total disregard for health, safety, and environmental concerns in product manufacturing.

The drive to force suppliers into offering products at the absolute lowest prices is causing sweatshops, child labor, hazardous products, and environmental horrors. Once the manufacturers have stooped to their lowest price by dodging every kind of regulation and bit of human decency they market the same crap all over the US- not just to Wal-Mart.

And, did you notice these are only the LICENSED Fisher-Price products? Could it be that once the jacked-up licensing royalties are paid, there is no money left for a safe, much less quality, product. Seriously, they know they can sell us hazardous junk if they put the right picture on it. Smarter shoppers could turn some of this nonsense around faster than the government.

[Bastet]

I too posted this on my blog site, I am really getting fed up with CEO's choosing countries who don't meet our standards to make our children's toys...One word for the toy companies CEO's - Greed!

And to top it off, it is virtually impossible to stop buying toys for our kids when almost 90% are made in China! When will we start helping our own country by giving jobs to our own people?

It will take a "Not made in China" label until I buy another Fisher Price toy.

To read more of my rant visit my blog at www.parentingtales.blogspot.com

[Sandy]

Excellent post!

We all need to stop buying toys that are made in China!

See http://americanmadetoys.googlepages.com/americanmadetoys for a long list of links to companies that sell American made toys.