CHINA-FREE PRODUCTS: More Poison Toys for All the Girls and Boys

CHINA-FREE

DEFINITION chi-na-free adj. A term proposed for use on food labels to show that products are not made in China.

CONTEXT In light of recent health and safety scares regarding Chinese-made food and products, a U.S.-based company called Food for Health International has announced plans to put "China-free" stickers on its goods. The subtext: These products won't make you sick or have harmful contaminants like melamine.

USAGE Given recent recalls of items from toys to toothpaste, China-free labeling could catch on, though consumers would do well to remember that not all products from China are tainted and not all tainted products are from China.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

More Poison Toys for All the Girls and Boys

Buried in last week's back pages was an announcement by Wal-Mart that it has once again flooded the American market with lead-poisoning toys from China. This time, it was lead dinosaurs. Earlier this year, Wal-Mart announced that it was recalling over 60,000 baby bibs tainted with lead. That's right, those little things wrapped around babies necks that you always see them sucking on.

Wal-Mart alone has had to recall over 60 products recently, including cough medicine for kids, teether books for tots, cribs that resulted in infant deaths, defective car seats, and at least a half-dozen lead-poisoned toys. Of course, Wal-Mart isn't the only corporate culprit, just the biggest. Major recalls have been issued in 2007 for poisoned dog food, toothpaste made with anti-freeze, and more lead-painted toys from China than I can count.

All of these announcements have created severe recall fatigue for the press and the public Read More