I know a chemist at a consumer products testing lab, and they are SWAMPED right now. They’re one of the labs doing the testing on the thomas the tank engine products, and they’re finding really high levels of lead. Interesting how the NY Times article makes it sound like they know exactly where the bad items came from. If that’s the case, I wonder why just last week they sent this company out to a bunch of stores to buy a random sampling of their product for emergency testing?
Now Walmart, which is one of their clients, is freaking out and sending 1000’s of random samples because pretty much everything in their store is from China.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot more stuff get recalled.
When was the last time a large batch of US made goods was full of lead? Probably before you were born.
Honestly, I hope all these recalls are a wake up call for people and they realize that getting everything dirt cheap from China isn’t a good idea. The reason it’s so cheap is because their government allows them to cut corners, in materials, in labor, in testing, in patent infringement and in safety.
We’re seeing more and more recalls of both food and consumer products coming out of China because with each recall we do more testing, choosing not to believe their guarantees that their products are safe.
They are a wakeup call. And they highlight other problems such as the fact that China holds billions of US dollars in debt, and could someday exert power over us. And their often deplorable working conditions and slave labor.
Yep, China makes cheap crap. The whole concept of quality control as it’s known in other parts of the world is new to them. Sometimes that’s OK if you want something cheap above all else.
Something like a kid’s toy is more important, and an American company using a Chinese supplier should have been more suspect of their product and kept closer watch.
China is crazy…I came across those links…they make this box us DJs use that interfaces vinyl to mp3s so we can spin ‘real’ records on but play MP3s…and they bootlegged that shit in china. they also bootleg everything else from the iphone and ipod to DJ mixers and shit. it’s just crazy to me that they would take the time to reverse engineer such a niche product. check out those articles. they even bootlegged disney.
And I don’t know where you get your news, but the places I get my news are covering it quite a bit. That lead paint thing actually began a few weeks ago. NPR & BBC is where it’s at for news.
Yeah, they’re covering the recalls, but no one seems to want to make that bold statement that maybe we should be doing a lot more testing. The scary part is that companies are doing the testing quietly because they’re very worried that a lot more products may have issues.
you get what you pay for.
it applies to everything.
i’m not willing to spend to much on anything anymore…
since it is made off shore, its clearly got a higher profit margin
than it would if it were made stateside.
i want them to get less money, so i buy cheap crap
you guys know that any importer from anywhere has a quality guy in that country to make sure that the items are manufactured as specified before they ship it to the usa,right? what i am saying is, our state side companies blame chinese manufactures(which i really believe in this case that they cut corners to meet the specified price of the us company) but i am sure that most of the time they just close their eyes just because they know what they are getting for that price or they got to have that merchandise on shelves for the launch or for the holiday season…etc…it usually takes more than a month to ship it to us and if they refuse the merchandise and by the time they find another manufacture that would do it for that price and have it shipped…it would be too late…
my 2 cents
Quality control in China isn’t the same as quality control in, say, Japan, USA, Italy, etc. Specs don’t work well in a culture used to saying “close enough” and “I think that’s right.” I’d be willing to bet that the company that made the toys with the lead paint didn’t even know there was lead in their paint.
The truck should be on its way up from Johnstown, PA right now. 
