I was listening to the Latin American service of China Radio International today. They ran a story that commented on the recent recalls on Chinese toys containing lead pain and "date rape drug"-like compounds. In this story, they claimed that a study on these and other Chinese products recalled for safety reasons had shown that the root cause of the recalls were defective designs created by American companies.

This one left me scratching my head. At first, the claim seems pretty extreme. However, as I've been learning over the last couple of years, language and cultural barriers can be significant roadblocks in the conduction of international business. Communicating your requirements to an overseas contractor can be a significant challenge. In that light, I guess that I can see how it could be easy to miss an important detail, such as lead toxicity when specifying the paint to be used on a product; however, that's no excuse for making hazardous products.

I really wish that somebody in the media would explain how these dangerous products slip through the cracks, instead of just reporting, "here's yet another product recall." Who specifies the paints, dyes and other chemicals to be used? Are materials safety data sheets used in China? If used in the manufacture of these products are dangerous (such as lead paint), are the people who work in the manufacturing plants made aware that they are handling dangerous substances? If so, does this information ever make it back to the company that ordered the products from the sub-contractor?

Ack!

Rant:

Don't get me started on this one! With Mattel's CEO kissing major a$$ and APOLOGIZING to China to save face, saying that it was basically Mattel's fault that China used lead, to save their huge profits and stockholder's money, and not apolgizing to US first, or more sincerely, I am furious. I wrote a letter to them few weeks ago.

I've already told my family that I am boycotting Mattel, and their American Girl Dolls, Fisher Price, and any other Mattel brands. I am not giving or keeping any of their junk for Christmas or birthdays.

Anyway, I need to get my hands on some of those Aqua-dots. I want to sell them in front of the jr. high to get some extra cash for the holidays. Or I could just make some Jemken.

Just looked that up!

Yuck!! Just goes to show the lengths people will go to cop a buzz.

We can "thank" Walmart and Target too. Their constant demands for ever lower wholesale prices from vendors is one of the biggest driving forces in this mess.

I think it goes a bit higher up the chain. Public corporations need to show growth --the most growth, every single quarter, or they get punished by the wall street bean counters.

Nothing else matters but money. That silly race to the bottom is where the thanks go, IMHO.

BTW: I don't buy that cheap crap from those places. It's been a good thing. I have less crap than most people I know!