Blame China

I was recently talking with someone who was leading a sheltered life. This person thought that everything written in the newspaper is true when it relates to China. This person was unaware of the fact that a majority of what is written about China in North America is usually blown way out of proportion to satisfy some sort of hidden agenda (and no this isn’t a conspiracy theory).

Take for example the recent Mattel incident. The Western media is “reporting” that Mattel had to recall over “19 million China-made toys containing small magnets or coated in lead paint - potentially hazardous items that may have been on playroom shelves for more than five years”. The lead paint issue is a somewhat serious issue, but it is due to the outsourcing of painting to a third party manufacturer in China - completely unrelated to the original Chinese manufacturer, which Mattel says it will continue to work with. But it’s the small magnet issue that I find interesting.

In Canada, the Mattel recall extends to about 890,000 magnetic toys, including Polly Pocket dolls, Batman action figures, Doggie Day Care and Barbie playsets. The toys were made from January, 2002, to January, 2007, and contain small, powerful magnets that, when dislodged and swallowed, can attract each other and cause potentially fatal intestinal blockages or perforations.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said yesterday that no injuries had been reported with any of the 72 Mattel products recalled. However, the U.S. government said at least one American child has died and 19 others have needed surgery since 2003 after swallowing magnets used in other toys.

This issue is a design problem, a problem Mattel has admitted to and has taken full accountability for. This issue has nothing to do with China, yet the article fails to make this distinction. Can you even tell that the problem is with Mattel and not a Chinese manufacturer? If you read the article and do no further research, you get no sense of the truth, only that a manufacturer in China has yet again risked the lives of every North American and a new mother will no longer buy “mass-marketed toys”.