Nov 24, 2008 5:24 pm US/Central
Safe Shopping Guide Helps Avoid Recalled Products
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
-
-
Magnaman looks innocent, but the small magnets that hold its pull-apart pieces together make it a potential killer.
CBS
Your kids may be starting to make their wish list for the holidays, but deciding what to buy can be hard for parents after a year packed with recalls of dangerous toys. As CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reports, there is now new help for parents.
Magnaman looks innocent, but the small magnets that hold its pull-apart pieces together make it a potential killer.
"They'll clamp together in a child's intestines, and while initially it looks like stomach flu, what happens is a child's intestine will rip open," said Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
It's just one of the toys listed in Madigan's "Play It Safe" guide which details each of the more than 500 kids' products recalled this year.
"Incredible lead levels in these little charms. There was a child downstate who swallowed one of these charms," Madigan said. "And we were able to identify significant levels of lead."
Lead dangers are another recurring recall theme - in charm bracelets, in Harry Potter bookends and in toy boats that carry the Buzz's Boatyard brand.
Last year, more than 35 million items were recalled when Chinese-made toys from big name makers like Mattel and Fisher-Price caused widespread concern. And Mattel took out full-page newspaper ads to apologize.
This year, 18 million items were recalled and pulled from store shelves.
But Madigan worries that hard-pressed consumers searching for bargains may unknowingly expose their families to danger.
"What we're very concerned about this year, because of the economy, is that we're going to see more people shopping on the Internet and shopping at secondhand stores where they may not be as aware of recalls, and where they may not have taken products out of their stores or out of their listings on the Internet," Madigan said.
That's where the attorney general's guide can be useful. You can check out dangerous items before you go shopping and look for others that may be in your home already.
You can obtain a free copy of the Safe Shopping Guide several different ways:
- To download or view the guide on the Attorney General's website,
click here.- To request a hard copy via mail, free of charge, call 1-888-414-7678.
- To pick up a copy, visit any of the Attorney General's main and regional offices.
- To sign up for recall notifications via e-mail,
click here.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Celebrity Watcher: Real Or Fake?
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
