Testing for toys unlikely after voluntary recall – BFAD

Toys inspired by television characters Big Bird, Elmo and Dora may not have to go through testing after their local importer over the weekend volunteered to pull them out of store shelves. Joshua Ramos, deputy director of the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD), on Monday said that lead testing might be unnecessary. "We might not subject them to testing anymore since the local importer over the weekend said they will be recalling the toys," Ramos said in a television interview on GMA News' Unang Balita. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on Friday asked the BFAD to test Fisher-Price toys made in China that are suspected to be laden with excessive amounts of lead. "Under the Consumers Act, when products get recalled in other countries, they also have to be withdrawn here in the country," he added. The BFAD will just have to complete and compare their list with that released by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission last week. "The next step is to find out if the [list] that was published by their principals abroad are the same as the one published here," he said. The US list included model names and product numbers for the nearly one million recalled Fisher-Price toys. "They listed 83 [models] in their website but only a few were published in our newspapers," said Ramos. Meanwhile, the BFAD official warned against exposing children to excessive amounts of lead. "Literature tells us that no immediate symptoms may manifest. But it has an effect in the brain in small amount including a child's development," said Ramos, adding symptoms like stomach pains and anemia. Toys 'R Us, a major toy store in the country selling the products up for recall, had started taking these toys out of their shelves after receiving a recall order Thursday from Mattel Inc, the parent company of Fisher-Price. The local toy store returned the products included in the recall list to Mattel's sole distributor in the country. The action is part of a worldwide recall announced Wednesday by Mattel subsidiary Fisher-Price that involves 967,000 plastic preschool toys made by a Chinese vendor and sold in the United States between May and August. Out of the global recall of 83 types of toys based on the popular characters Big Bird, Elmo and Dora, among others, six models have been recalled in the Philippines, four in Singapore, three in Malaysia and one in Indonesia, said Mattel Southeast Asia Marketing Manager Cheok Ching Won in Kuala Lumpur. - GMANews.TV