Summary
I try to buy a Pollywood limo and a blond Barbie, but the cash register issues a warning for both products in large letters: "Don't sell this item." The checker calls over a supervisor, who explains why the items aren't for sale: "It's either a safety or a quality problem. Sorry!"
"The CPSC doesn't really do much of anything," says Charles Margulis, communications director for the Center for Environmental Health (CEH), which has exposed lead in children's lunchboxes and baby bibs. "The companies almost always are the ones who find the problem, and they bring the problem to the CPSC, and they say, 'we found this, and we think it might be a problem; if you guys agree, we're going to do a recall'."That means toy companies like Mattel are essentially self-regulating. In the August recalls of millions of toys, Mattel notified the CPSC about the problem, the agency and the company worked out a voluntary recall plan, and they jointly announced the recall. The CPSC doesn't even have jurisdiction to test products before they come onto the market, which means it's simply up to the companies selling them to make sure that they're safe before they're sold.See the full content of this document
Extract
Salon Barbie's Home Ruled a Toxic Site
Preteen girls happily browse the Polly Pocket aisle in Target Greatland in this city just south of San Francisco. Amid a sea of pink sits a Polly Pocket! Polly wood Limo Scene Vehicle, which two days earlier had been recalled. Three children had suffered serious injury after eating magnets from similar toys, causing intestinal perforations and requiring surgery. In a neighboring aisle, several boxes of Barbie and Tanner, also under ...
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