Fisher Price Recall

[zuluwarrior]

Plastic Products made in China , DORA & Elmo may contain lead base paint , check through your children toy box .

[pecan]

A second recall ....   
 

 Mattel recalls millions more Chinese-made toys

By Sarah Coffey Tue Aug 14, 1:19 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mattel Inc. (MAT.N), the largest U.S. toy company, recalled millions more Chinese-made toys on Tuesday due to hazards from small, powerful magnets and lead paint, sending its shares down as much as 6 percent.


The company's second recall this month came as it launched a national advertising campaign to assure consumers it is on top of product safety.

The new recall involves 18.2 million magnetic toys globally, including 9.5 million in the United States. All have magnets or magnetic parts that can be dislodged.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said it ad received hundreds of reports of magnets coming loose. It said it had previously received reports of three children swallowing more than one magnet and suffering intestinal perforations that required surgery. When more than one magnet is swallowed, the magnets can attract each other and cause intestinal perforation or blockage, which can be fatal.

In the United States, the recall includes 7.3 million Polly Pocket dolls and accessories with magnets, 1 million Doggie Day Care magnetic toys, 683,000 Barbie and Tanner magnetic toys, and 345,000 Batman and One Piece play sets.

About 253,000 Pixar Sarge die-cast toy cars with lead paint were also recalled. Lead has been linked to health problems in children, including brain damage.

Earlier this month Mattel's Fisher-Price unit recalled about 1.5 million preschool toys made by China-based contract manufacturer Lida Toy Co. because the paint on the toys might contain excessive amounts of lead. The global recall included products based on popular preschool characters from "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer."

"The safety of children is our primary concern, and we are deeply apologetic to everyone affected," Mattel Chief Executive Robert Eckert said in a statement on Tuesday. "Mattel has rigorous procedures, and we will continue to be vigilant and unforgiving in enforcing quality and safety."

The earlier recall was Mattel's largest since 1998, when it recalled 10 million Power Wheels vehicles made by Fisher-Price, and the company said it expected to take a $30 million charge from that action.

"NO EXCUSE" FOR LEAD PAINT

Nancy Nord, acting chairwoman of the CPSC, said the new recall was made especially large to prevent injuries from the toys.

"There is absolutely no excuse for lead to be found in toys entering this country," she said. "It is totally unacceptable and it needs to stop. This agency is going to take whatever action it needs to take to address that problem aggressively."

There has been concern worldwide about the safety of goods imported from China. The United States stepped up its inspection of Chinese goods after a chemical additive in pet food caused the death of some animals.

In June, RC2 Corp (RCRC.O) recalled wooden Thomas & Friends toy trains made in China and sold in the United States because some of them contained lead paint.

With more than 80 percent of toys on U.S. store shelves manufactured in China -- according to the Toy Industry Association -- toy sellers are worried consumers will stay away from Chinese-made products.

Analysts are also concerned that Mattel's brand name has taken a hit.

"The real issue longer-term is how this affects the Fisher-Price brand equity," said Oppenheimer analyst Linda Bolton Weiser. "Even though everything's made in China, it's still specific products and brands that have been recalled."

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Sean McGowan said Mattel is known to take safety more seriously than its peers. The issue is "more corruption in some of these factories than a problem at Mattel," he said, adding that if other companies were as vigilant as Mattel, more problems would be uncovered.

Mattel has said it is expanding its testing programs to ensure that painted toys from third-party manufacturers are safe before they are sent to stores.

The independent watchdog group Consumer Reports is calling for third-party testing for toys similar to what independent tester Underwriters Laboratories does for small electronics.

"Certainly, consumers have lost confidence," said Don Mays, director for Consumer Reports' product safety and planning. "People have said they cannot trust products from China and they will not buy products from China."

AD CAMPAIGN

Mattel took out a full-page ad in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today, featuring three children playing together and a letter from Eckert addressed to "Fellow Parents."

"Nothing is more important than the safety of our children," Eckert wrote.

"Our long record of safety at Mattel is why we're one of the most trusted names with parents. And I am confident that the actions we are taking now will maintain that trust."

News of the second recall comes as an owner of the Chinese toy factory at the center of the first recall was reported to have committed suicide.

Mattel shares were down 3.27 percent at $22.80 in late-morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange after falling as low as $22.10 earlier in the session.

(See http://blogs.reuters.com/category/themes/shop-talk/ for "Shop Talk" -- Reuters' retail and consumer blog)

(Additional reporting by Jessica Wohl and Regan Doherty in Chicago)

[Dutty]

Pet food, Toys, Toothpaste , Tyres......ah wonder what else dem fellahs senning dong de pipe to poison we wit 

say wha.. .capitalism wild west style...is nuttn other superpowers didnt do in the past before people get uppity wit dey 'federal safety standards'

[pecan]

Everybody want to buy cheap products at WalMart and Costco and de like

But dere is a price to be paid ...

[Queen Macoomeh]

Everybody want to buy cheap products at WalMart and Costco and de like

But dere is a price to be paid ...

nah man Pecan...it's not a question of 'wanting' to buy cheap products. Walmart, Costco, Sams, Price Club et al have strangled smaller business and replaced quantity with quality. A simple family has dwindling choices to feed and cloth themselves. Where are the viable alternatives?

[Dutty]

Everybody want to buy cheap products at WalMart and Costco and de like

But dere is a price to be paid ...

nah man Pecan...it's not a question of 'wanting' to buy cheap products. Walmart, Costco, Sams, Price Club et al have strangled smaller business and replaced quantity with quality. A simple family has dwindling choices to feed and cloth themselves. Where are the viable alternatives?

Ther local grocer and any clothing outlet other than the Big 3 named above

They wasnt always around..people survived without them....unfortunately is a catch 22

[pecan]

Everybody want to buy cheap products at WalMart and Costco and de like

But dere is a price to be paid ...

nah man Pecan...it's not a question of 'wanting' to buy cheap products. Walmart, Costco, Sams, Price Club et al have strangled smaller business and replaced quantity with quality. A simple family has dwindling choices to feed and cloth themselves. Where are the viable alternatives?

supply and demand

WalMart began to sell lower costs products .. ppl had a choice in the beginning

they chose the box stores at the expense of the local mom and pop operation

then it was too late to turn back

[zuluwarrior]

Alyuh doh even buy them flavored cont-dums made in china it might have lead in it too. wat ah ting

[Feliziano]

Everybody want to buy cheap products at WalMart and Costco and de like

But dere is a price to be paid ...

nah man Pecan...it's not a question of 'wanting' to buy cheap products. Walmart, Costco, Sams, Price Club et al have strangled smaller business and replaced quantity with quality. A simple family has dwindling choices to feed and cloth themselves. Where are the viable alternatives?

Queen u mean quality with quantity right?

i get the feeling somebody want to make China look real bad
next thing yuh hear is China trying to kill Americans by poisoning them

the thing is even though these big US companies outsourcing/using cheap labor they still supposed to be doign some sort of quality control before it reaches the public cause is not the chinese company brand name at stake.

so i would say Mattel and them just as guilty for letting the product reach the consumer

[futbolfan]

Everybody want to buy cheap products at WalMart and Costco and de like

But dere is a price to be paid ...

nah man Pecan...it's not a question of 'wanting' to buy cheap products. Walmart, Costco, Sams, Price Club et al have strangled smaller business and replaced quantity with quality. A simple family has dwindling choices to feed and cloth themselves. Where are the viable alternatives?

Well Walmart want to expand dey business in India and is real riot and picketing going on because dem Indians know once Walmart step in all dem lil corner shop and parlor go get de shaft....

[TriniCana]

was i the only one to hear dat dey CEO of the company that makin dese toys committed suscide ?
ah swear ah heard dat somewhere last week.

and the US/CAN governments want cheap labour ? and everybody want to go abroard to get products and materials ?
as dey saying goes 'cheap ting no good"

people doh think ? wha ah child does normally do with they toy ? not bite it, suck it, pick it up wid dey hands and den put dey fingers in dey mouth ?

if dat blasted toxic ting was ah slow killer (den again it could be)....dat is ah whole generation gone dere already

steups

[Bitter]

Even though the numbers seem big, the fact is that the number of tainted products recalled thus far is a very small percentage of the toal exports from China.

You could probably fix your supply chain pretty quickly, it will take a while to fix your reputation. With the way the media works, plus the natural jingoism of the commentary class, it's going to be a long string of "China again!" stories.

On thing that I'd like to examine is the number of defective/tainted products emerging from the US/Western markets vs those from the developing world. I would expect growing pains, especially since there is definite pressure on the suppliers to keep costs down.

China itself and the other emerging manufacturing countries will expect to see these kinds of things crop up from time to time. They do have problems in general with corruption and the attendant quality issues, questionable labour practices, crime. Capitalism is a dirty business, and more so without regulation. China seems to be trying to address the most egregious infractions with draconian penalties (death penalty for corruption?) hopefully people around the world will benefit from the improvements. 

[Dutty]

I eh know if de news nitpicking on the chinese....or if dey slackness ketchin up wit dem

But these boys on a roll for bacchanal oui


http://news.aol.com/story/ar/_a/chinese-jet-explodes-into-fire-in-japan/20070820090009990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/16/business/fake.php

Johnson & Johnson tracks down maker of phony diabetes test


NEW YORK: A global manhunt begun by Johnson & Johnson has traced to China counterfeit versions of an at-home diabetes test used by 10 million Americans to take sensitive measurements of blood sugar levels.

Potentially dangerous copies of the OneTouch Test Strip sold by Johnson & Johnson's LifeScan unit surfaced in U.S. and Canadian pharmacies last year, according to federal court documents unsealed in June but only recently discovered by Bloomberg News.

Court filings disclose, for the first time, that China is the source of about one million phony test strips, which have turned up in at least 35 states and in Canada, Greece, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Johnson & Johnson, the world's largest consumer-health products maker, learned of the counterfeit tests after 15 patients complained of faulty results last September.

Tipped off by Johnson & Johnson, which is based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a nationwide consumer alert in October without disclosing the link to China. While no injuries were reported, inaccurate test readings may lead a diabetic to inject the wrong amount of insulin, causing harm or death, the agency said.
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Fake medicines are a $32 billion global business, said the World Health Organization, and the Food and Drug agency said it had run 54 counterfeit investigations in 2006, almost twice as many as in the year before.

"Growth in counterfeit medicines and devices is probably the biggest health threat besides infectious disease," said Peter Pitts, director of the Center for Medicines in the Public Interest in New York and formerly an agency official investigating fake drugs.

"The source was from China, through Canada, to the United States," said Steven Gutman, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostic Devices and Evaluation at the agency in Rockville, Maryland, referring to the phony test strips. "As far as we can tell, the counterfeiter has been put out of business in the U.S."

The court documents show, also for the first time, a worldwide distribution chain discovered in the past year by investigators hired by Johnson & Johnson. The trail, initiated by consumer complaints to a LifeScan hotline, first led detectives to 700 pharmacies where the products were sold, then to eight U.S. wholesalers and then to two importers, one in the United States, who was tracked down in a hotel room in Las Vegas, and another in Canada.

Records seized from the importers show the counterfeit strips were bought from Henry Fu and his company, Halson Pharmaceutical, which, according to its Internet site, is based in Shanghai.

Halson's Web site says that the company distributes and manufactures medical supplies like syringes, and is run by Fu, who, according to a court order, is also known as Su Zhi Yong. Fu was arrested by the Chinese authorities and remains in prison in China, awaiting resolution of his case in the People's Court of Shanghai.

LifeScan sells a variety of strips under the OneTouch Ultra and OneTouch Basic Profile names. The test sells in the United States without prescription for about $1 per strip.

Johnson & Johnson officials first learned that corrupted strips were being sold "between Sept. 18 and Sept. 28, 2006, when LifeScan received complaints from 15 customers from various states, including Wisconsin, New Jersey and New York, concerning the same lot," Johnson & Johnson said in court papers.

On Oct. 5, investigators hired by LifeScan visited three pharmacies in Wisconsin and found OneTouch packages with a lot number not created by the company's plants in Inverness, Scotland and Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, the papers say. On the same day, another investigator, following a call to LifeScan's toll-free hotline, found a package with the same phony lot number in a Brooklyn, New York drugstore.

"The first box we found, in fact, had a unique lot number," Potter said at a hearing held July 13 by Judge Sandra Townes at U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. "The counterfeiters counterfeited every element from the original box, except they put a fake lot number. They really did us a favor and we were able to advance this case quite rapidly because of that."

On Oct. 13, the U.S. Food and Drug agency published its consumer alert and LifeScan issued a press release and notified pharmacists, distributors and wholesalers to watch for packages with four separate lot numbers.

Pharmacists told investigators they had bought the strips from wholesalers who, in turn, said they had purchased the product from Royal Global Wholesale, of Boynton Beach, Florida. That company is run by Jacques Duplessis from his home.