Thomas Debrowski, Mattel’s executive vice president of worldwide operations, apologized to China’s quality control chief.
He said, “Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys.”
He added that he realized the recalls had damaged the reputation of imported Chinese goods, already under for amid rhetoric against outsourcing of US jobs to Asian manufacturers and US fears of growing Chinese industrial power.
Even Before the Mattel recalls, a number of incidents involving unsafe products from China, ranging from toys to seafood to pet food to toothpaste had led to calls for the banning of Chinese imports into both Europe and the US.
Earlier this week, Mattel CEO Robert Eckert tried to defend his company’s toy safety record from the onslaught of two Democratic lawmakers who accused him of stonewalling a probe into production practices in China.
Debrowski claimed that the “vast majority of those products recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel’s design, not through a manufacturing flaw in China’s manufacturers.”
But it is unclear whether this was merely another attempt to head off investigation into manufacturing processes that could be far more costly to change than design practices, or whether this was a real attempt at taking responsibility for the recall.
With congress at loose ends, and the toy companies involved in maneuvers, perhaps the only way we will find out the truth will be through legislation. If you or a loved one has suffered adverse side effects as a result of a defective product, contact Houston area product liability lawyers at Marc Whitehead & Associates, not only for yourself, but for the public’s right to know.
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