Recall adds to fears on Chinese goods

August 16, 2007
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* VIDEO Mattel recalls more Chinese-made toys
* PDF Affected toys in Australia

FEARS about cheap Chinese-made goods have been raised again after global toy company Mattel issued its second major recall of toys in two weeks.

More than 460,000 toys, mainly Polly Pocket magnetic figures and play sets, were taken off shelves in Australia yesterday out of concern that small magnets could become dislodged. If swallowed, the magnets could attract each other and cause intestinal perforation, infection or blockage, which can be fatal.

Some 23,000 green army Sarge Cars, which contain toxic lead paint, were also part of the recall. Mattel said the lead paint on the cars came from a non-authorised source supplying a subcontractor in China.

Globally, Mattel's latest recall includes more than 18.2 million toys. It has sent jitters around the world about Chinese products, particularly in the US, where anger is growing for a push to limit unsafe Chinese imports.

The recall comes just two days after the suicide of the head of a Chinese company that was behind another global recall of toys earlier this month. Zhang Shuhong, a Hong Kong businessman and owner of Lee Der Industrial, a company that made toys for Mattel for 15 years, hanged himself in a company warehouse in southern China.

The earlier recall related to almost 1 million Sesame Street and Dora The Explorer toys made by Mattel subsidiary Fisher-Price, due to the presence of lead paint.

"The safety of children is our primary concern, and we are deeply apologetic to everyone affected," said Mattel chairman Robert Eckert.

Christopher Zinn, spokesman for consumer watchdog Choice, said the wave of recent recalls was likely to lead to parents questioning the safety of their children's toys. "It's not an issue for panic, but I suppose everyone is interested in the quality control issues in China."

Mr Zinn said Australia needed a national product safety system and a dedicated commonwealth product safety agency. Currently, responsibility for product safety lies mainly in the hands of individual companies and State Government consumer agencies.

Robert Caulfield, vice-president of Kids Safe Victoria, said increasing awareness of the safety shortcomings of Chinese industry was likely to lead to more product recalls in the future.

"There certainly aren't the sophisticated protection measures in place in many of the factories in China we might expect to see here in Australia," he said. "It's one of the facts of life of getting products made cheaply in a country like that."

But Beverly Jenkin, chief executive of the Australian Toy Association, labelled concerns about the safety of Chinese-made toys as "China bashing". She said there had been recalls of Australian and US-made toys in the past and the reason for the focus on China was because it was now producing most of the world's toys.

China supplies 80 per cent of the global toy market.

http://www.service.mattel.com

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