International Consumer Protection
China has polluted our food system with poisons and the trail to the guilty has been covered with bureaucratic morass. Recently reports of recalled products has pointed to China as the number one culprit for unreasonably dangerous products. We need to enforce sanctions and judicial remedies against manufacturers outside our borders. The following article is a classic example of the looming problem associated with unregulated integration of the world's economy.
http://www.bailey-law.com/lawyer-attorney-1215486.html
As More Toys Are Recalled, Trail Ends in China
Ryan Pyle for The New York Times
A toy factory worker in Dongguan, China, where some of the Thomas & Friends trains are made.
By ERIC S. LIPTON and DAVID BARBOZA
Published: June 19, 2007
WASHINGTON, June 18 — China manufactured every one of the 24 kinds of toys recalled for safety reasons in the United States so far this year, including the enormously popular Thomas & Friends wooden train sets, a record that is causing alarm among consumer advocates, parents and regulators.
Times Topics: Consumer Product Safety
Ryan Pyle for The New York Times
A worker at a factory in Dongguan, China, uses a marker to touch up the paint on toy trains. Several Dongguan factories make Thomas toy trains.
The latest recall, announced last week, involves 1.5 million Thomas & Friends trains and rail components — about 4 percent of all those sold in the United States over the last two years by RC2 Corporation of Oak Brook, Ill. The toys were coated at a factory in China with lead paint, which can damage brain cells, especially in children.
Just in the last month, a ghoulish fake eyeball toy made in China was recalled after it was found to be filled with kerosene. Sets of toy drums and a toy bear were also recalled because of lead paint, and an infant wrist rattle was recalled because of a choking hazard.
Over all, the number of products made in China that are being recalled in the United States by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission has doubled in the last five years, driving the total number of recalls in the country to 467 last year, an annual record.
It also means that China today is responsible for about 60 percent of all product recalls, compared with 36 percent in 2000.
Thomas and Friends contracted a Chinese manufacturer to produce those trains. If they choose to outsource their manufacturing to a country where we do not enforce sanctions and have no judicial remedies, then they should be held responible for the damages done by their products. And any losses they incur are a cost of doing business the way they are doing business. They may find out that Chinese manufactruing is not as cheap as it sounds.