Chinese-made toys withdrawn over lead fears
US toy-maker Fisher-Price is recalling 83 types of Chinese-made toys over concerns about excessive amounts of lead in their paint.
The recall being announced today involves 967,000 plastic pre-school toys, including the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters, made by a Chinese vendor and sold in the United States between May and August.
The recall includes around 100,000 toys in Ireland and the UK.
It is the latest in a wave of recalls that has heightened global concern about the safety of Chinese-made products.
The recall is the first for Fisher-Price. and parent company Mattel. involving lead paint.
It is the largest for Mattel since 1998 when Fisher-Price had to withdraw about 10 million Power Wheels from toy stores.
David Allmark, general manager of Fisher-Price, said the problem was detected by an internal probe and reported to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The recall is particularly alarming since Mattel, known for its strict quality controls, is considered a role model in the toy industry for how it operates in China.
Fisher-Price and the commission issued statements saying parents should keep suspect toys away from children and contact the company.
The commission works with companies to issue recalls when it finds consumer goods that can be harmful. Under current regulations, children’s products found to have more than .06 percent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.
Allmark says the recall was “fast-tracked”, which allowed the company to quarantine two-thirds of the toys before they even made it to store shelves. In negotiating details of the recall, Fisher-Price and the government agreed to withhold details from the public until today to give stores time to get suspect toys off shelves and Fisher-Price time to get its recall hotline up and running.
Allmark says the recall was “fast-tracked”, which allowed the company to quarantine two-thirds of the toys before they even made it to store shelves.
In negotiating details of the recall, Fisher-Price and the government sought to withhold details from the public until today to give stores time to get suspect toys off shelves and Fisher-Price time to get its recall hotline up and running. However, some news organisations prematurely posted an embargoed version of the story online.
He added: “We are still concluding the investigation, how it happened. ... But there will be a dramatic investigation on how this happened. We will learn from this.”
The recall follows another high-profile move from toy maker RC2 Corp, which in June voluntarily recalled 1.5 million wooden railroad toys and set parts from its Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line.
The company said that the surface paint on certain toys and parts made in China between January 2005 and April 2006 contain lead, affecting 26 components and 23 retailers.
