CNN recently reported the story of toy beads from China coated with a chemical substance similar to the coma-inducing “date-rape” drug GHB.  Several American children became violently ill after ingesting the toxic beads.

Unfortunately, toy beads are not the only unsafe products to come from China.  The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission keeps a running tally of unsafe toys on their ‘Toy Hazard Recalls’ page.  Making a parent’s job even more difficult is that more than 400 different toys are listed, including products from FAO Schwartz as well as household names like Lego’s, Barbie, Curious George, Battlestar Galactica, and Winnie the Pooh.

American companies regularly adhere to far more stringent safety codes for both workplace conditions and the materials used in manufacturing.  In fact, both Chinese steel and chemical companies spend only 10% of what U.S. Steel and Dow Chemicals routinely spend for environmental controls.

Thanks to such non-existent environmental controls and a lack of oversight, Chinese companies follow only the most rudimentary standards—yielding the sometimes disastrous results noted in recent toy recalls.

It’s worth considering, then, why more American consumers should start buying American-made goods.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 12:48 am and is filed under Holding China Accountable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.