Is Mattel’s In-House Safety Testing Enough?
Those of you familiar with the CPSIA law that affects toys will find it incredibly frustrating that Fisher-Price, owned by Mattel (Wikipedia), has recently recalled millions of toys (CNN article). Mattel, after making a deal with the government, does not have to submit to independent testing but can instead use their own in-house certification.
I mentioned this almost exactly one year ago (post here) and you can find more on the special deal Mattel has with the government at
Essco Safety (published after my own post) and
The Chicago Tribune (posted before the deal was final).
How long will Mattel be allowed to test their own products? Will this recall change the government’s mind, or is Fisher-Price not a part of the special deal that Mattel has made with the government? I do not have time to play journalist on this story, but I like to think that one of the news agencies out there is already investigating the issue and uncovering — and maybe even planning a report on — what is going on.
I expect that at least one group of parents will ask the difficult question. Actually, it’s a very simple question: Why is it that Mattel — “one of the companies that created the problem in the first place” — is able to test their own products?
I suspect that in the end this will be a story that vanishes quietly.
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- Fisher-Price Recalls 10.9 Million Hazardous Toys, U.S. Says (businessweek.com)
I’ve always thought it was bunk that Mattel’s toys were a big part of the reason that the government started cracking down on toys… Only to have Mattel be able to avoid most of the legal drama that they had originally created.
I want to know what the hell is in the plastic they use for JLU figures. The crap just gets absolutely COVERED in a mysterious funk. It’s easy enough to get rid of, but only Mattel toys do this. The JLU plastic is just nuts.
@Newt – I love when Mattel tells fans that some issues are “factory problems.” And then we find out that Mattel owns the factory? I think Mattel is just so big that entire departments don’t even know other departments exist.
And as I expected, the recall this past week vanished almost immediately from the news.