I wonder when did Mattel's toy specs ever include lead paint? Pre- 1930s?

what's really funny is the comments of this news.

Maybe they can send us something with asbestos next. What a crock of crap!
My views on this matter are on my site.

hey, nanheyangrouchuan & hairy carrot: I gather that eating-crow & apologizing are not to your taste? Even where Mattel/you, is/are wrong? Says a lot about the worth of your comments, I guess. Have you heard of Ben "SPEAK, THAT I MAY KNOW THEE" Johnson? Probably not.

Nanhe, your comment is off base. Whatever the political backstory behind the apology, the facts it references are true: the vast majority of the 19 million Mattel toys recalled resulted from design flaws of Mattel's (e.g the small magnets that could come unattached), not manufacturing flaws by Chinese factories. The lead paint affected only 400,000 of the total recall; in overall toy sales this is a small number. Not to say there is not a quality issue with Chinese manufacturing, but this issue has been blown way out of proportion by the U.S. media and politicians eager to look tough. I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that quality is a bigger problem in China than in other manufacturing countries such as India, Mexico, Indonesia, etc.

off base comments by me? bah mantou!

"Whatever the political backstory behind the apology, the facts it references are true: the vast majority of the 19 million Mattel toys recalled resulted from design flaws of Mattel's (e.g the small magnets that could come unattached), not manufacturing flaws by Chinese factories"

Ever heard of flaws in the material composition? Cutting corners in that realm can allow the magnets to break off very easily. Oh yeah, Chinese companies never cut corners in materials manufacturing (besides cars, concrete, chemical processing, etc).

It's completely obvious why Mattel "apologized"...because they want to continue to make cheap toys and because in the future they want to sell them in China...its a temporary pain for a future gain.

It's similar to Google and the like compromising their principles to operate in the "world's hottest economy".

Take this apology with a grain of salt folks

Does anyone have the full transcript of what Thomas Debrowski said? It's hard to tell whether Mattel went overboard in its apology without seeing the full text. Certainly Mattel was right to apologize for the fact that its design flaws contributed to the damage to the reputation of Chinese goods. But the apology seems to have gone too far in accepting total responsibility for the problems, when there is obviously a serious problem with business ethics and trust in China.