JRHS Writing BLOG

Monday, November 19, 2007

Toy Recalls Because of High Lead Counts

The Mattel Toy Company has recently had to recall over 18 million toys from their stock, world wide. Many figurines were a huge problem. Many children’s toys were being recalled because of high amounts of lead either in the paint or under the surface.

Lead can enter your body by getting it in your mouth, breathing it in, or absorbing it though your skin by touching something with lead present. Lead poisoning can have many symptoms, such as: anemia, nausea, muscle weakness, confusion, blindness, or coma. These are not things you want your child encountering, especially through their toys! Toys such as Dora the Explorer, Sarge (from the movie “Cars"), Sesame Street, Big Bird, Elmo, Diego and many other common children’s toys were recalled by Mattel for unhealthy amounts of lead in the paint. 

These toys were toys made in China and sold in America. The paint used in China was obviously made in various places in China. That paint was lead based paint. Mattel had a contract with places in China. Mattel said specifically which places they could use paint from. One of the subcontractors, Lee Der Industrial Company, drastically violated Mattel’s standards. They used paint from an unapproved third-party paint company in Southern China. Chinese officials banned that toy company from shipping toys for a while, because of the toy recalls in America. Shortly after, the co-owner of Lee Der Industrial Company (Zhang Shuhong) committed suicide at one of their warehouses.

With Christmas fast approaching us, buying toys is a scary thing for many people, and rightfully so. If people had no idea that those toys on the shelf were contaminated with lead, how are we going to know about others? No system can be perfect. Some will slip through the holes. Mattel realizes this and has formed stricter rules. They will now be testing every new batch of paint that comes in, to almost completely guarantee clarity from lead. The steps that are becoming mandatory aren’t going to fix everything, but it will substantially reduce danger to the children of America.

Sources
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119445657913685394.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://www.wral.com/5onyourside/story/1980879/
http://www.mattel.com/safety/us/
http://www.parents.com/parents/slideshow/slideShow.jsp?slideid=/templatedata/parents/slideshow/data/1189784528834.xml&ordersrc=google7toyrecall_slide&cobrandId=ww5&s_kwcid=toy%20recall|485699002
http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/mattel-toys-lead-paint-testing.html?OVRAW=Toy_Recalls&OVKEY=toy%20recall&OVMTC=standard&OVADID=15909759011&OVKWID=124355342511
http://www.bestwaytoinvest.com/mark-mcqueen-august-16-2007