Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Recalls Are Not Enough

I may not know much about how major companies are run but it seems like if you have to recall several different items throughout the year you'd stop using the warehouses that produce those items for you. Mattel and Fisher Price haven't learned this lesson. They, and other companies, continue to put America's children at risk for lead poisoning by having their products made by manufacturers in China and India. Also, Americans lose out in the job market by having these products made overseas.

I've never been a big proponent of using only American made products. I think that we should help other countries financially by providing work for them whenever we can, but not at the sake of Americans losing work or the health of our children. And when safety standards are an issue, we should only use people whose standards meet ours. China and India have continued to send products to us that are tainted with high levels of lead, far above the accepted standard of .06% per pound of product.

Why do our major toy companies continue to use these manufacturers overseas? Why are our children continually put at risk? Why are parents put in the position of questioning whether our children's toys are safe for them to play with? What will it take for our major toy companies to take matters into their own hands and have our toys produced in America? The voices of parents everywhere is what it's going to take. That and the almighty dollar. As hard as it would be not to purchase toys from our companies, maybe that's what it'll take for them to stop putting our children at risk. If they won't consider our children's safety then it's up to us to put a stop to this. Write to your local senator, congressman and the toy companies themselves. Ask for changes to be made. Let them know that recalls are NOT enough because the products have already made it into people's homes. Change has to be made before the products leave the warehouse. Change has to start now and it has to start in our own backyard on American soil.

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