The following article is the first installment in our monthlong PM Now! series titled, “From Reactive to Proactive: Redefining Safety Standards in the Promotional Industry.” Throughout the next four weeks, we will discuss product testing, quality assurance and how both suppliers and distributors can work in tandem to ensure the items they sell are safe for children and adults alike.
Part 1:Could the California Recalls Have Been Prevented?
For many in our industry, the story began earlier this summer with the media coverage of toy recalls being issued from manufacturers both large, Mattel, and comparatively small, Oak Brook, Illinois-based RC2. But these incidents were only a prelude to the more recent headlines that abruptly dumped the advertising specialties industry into the ring alongside its consumer counterparts.
Just a few weeks ago, on September 20, 2007, the California Department of Public Health released a press statement urging consumers to stop using the approximately 56,000 promotional lunch boxes the organization gave away as nutrition-education items. Upon investigation, three of the lunch boxes, supplied by T-A Creations and distributed by You Name It Promotions, were found to have elevated levels of lead. Shortly thereafter, according to Marla Kaye, president of You Name it Promotions, T-A Creations issued its own voluntary recall.
In the wake of these accounts, many in the business world were quick to point to Chinese manufacturing as the source of this growing problem. However, what is not being so widely reported is that the lead in the lunch boxes issue is far from a “breaking story,” particularly in the promotional products sector. Since as early as 2005, the Oakland, California-based Center for Environmental Health (CEH)—a nonprofit dedicated to protecting consumers from toxic chemicals—had been conducting its own tests on lead levels in vinyl lunch boxes. The results led the organization to build a case against a laundry list of offending manufacturers. On August 24, 2006—almost a full year to the day before the California Department of Health issued its press release—T-A Creations was formally added to the CEH’s lawsuit.
The Lawsuit, the Letter and the Lunch Boxes
But the legal action taken by the CEH wasn’t the first time T-A Creations and like companies allegedly were informed of the toxic lunch boxes. On July 20, 2006, a month prior to the formal suit against the company, a letter from the FDA was sent out to manufacturers and suppliers of vinyl lunch boxes. It read:
Because neither lead nor lead compounds are authorized for use in the manufacture of PVC [polyvinyl chloride] food-contact articles such as lunchboxes, and some migration of lead to food as a result of such use may reasonably be expected, we urge companies to refrain from marketing such lead containing lunchboxes.
Neither David Chen, T-A Creations’ CEO, nor Andrew Halim, the company’s vice president, recalled receiving such a letter. But, according to Charles Margulis, communications director at the CEH, it was unlikely they were completely in the dark. “I would expect that T-A Creations either got that letter or should have been aware of that letter … being a manufacturer of lunch boxes,” he maintained.
Regardless of whether or not the FDA’s communication was viewed by executives at T-A Creations, Halim reported that, following the August 2006 news of the CEH’s lawsuit, actions were taken to contain and eliminate the lunch box issue. “We discontinued selling those specific items,” he affirmed. In fact, the company stopped importing that particular product altogether, Halim added, and sent out a letter to its distributors informing them of the situation.
However, according to You Name It Promotions’ president Marla Kaye, the 2006 letter Halim spoke of was sent only to the limited number of distributors who had ordered that specific product, rather than as a preventative and informational statement to its client base as a whole. “From what I heard,” she said, “there [were] ten of us that got that letter. It wasn’t industry-wide.”
Flash forward to 2007, and the remarkably similar circumstances surrounding the California Department of Health. T-A Creations voluntarily issued a statement, but as of press time, neither Halim nor Kaye have accepted the responsibility of spearheading the recall of the lead-laden lunch boxes. In a recent article on the Web site for the San Mateo County Times, Halim was quoted as saying, “That’s not our problem,” yet Kaye finds his statements to be “absolutely ridiculous.” She added, “It was very clearly stated in our purchase order that these cannot contain lead and must fall under Proposition 65 guidelines. … Why they would think I would have to do any part of the recall is just mind-boggling to me.” Neither company’s Web site mentions the recall, yet by contrast, the California Department of Health links right from its homepage to the press release as well as to information detailing lunch box drop-off points and statistics on the health effects of lead.
Answers Make More Questions
While issues of lead in children’s products continue to make headlines every day, its becoming clear to most that a change can and should be on the wind. When looking at how the T-A Creations story fits into the overall scheme of things, it illustrates three areas that should be of concern to both promotional products distributors and suppliers:
• Testing issues. “The [National] Center for Disease Control says there is no safe level of lead exposure for kids,” Margulis said. But despite this proclamation, there are little to no federal regulations regarding lead toxicity in children’s products, nor a universal testing standard by which suppliers can comply. And lead isn’t the only danger. Flammability and choking hazards are but a few safety issues today’s suppliers must be aware of. Controls such as Proposition 65 and those put in place by the Consumer Product Safety Commission or ASTM International (a voluntary standards development organization) are there to help, but there still is a level of confusion regarding just what, exactly, must be followed.
• Supplier/distributor relationships. The promotional products industry is process-oriented. Whose responsibility is it to proceed with due diligence when it comes to product testing and quality assurance? Certainly in the case of T-A Creations and You Name It Promotions, each party believes it has done “their part,” but the industry cannot be divided on the issue of safety.
• Offshore manufacturing in China. It is a global marketplace, that much is true. In many of the recent cases of product recalls, the involved products were manufactured in China. How can U.S.-based suppliers keep their overseas factories running with the same ethical standards as their home offices?
In the coming weeks, PM Now! will feature an article addressing each of these topics, with the hope that our industry, as a whole, can begin taking steps to both educate itself and form more rigorous plans of action for testing, quality assurance and cooperation. Because for those with children at home, not to mention consumer advocacy groups like the CEH, “I didn’t know” can no longer be considered a sufficient response.
—by Christen Gruebel
Questions? Comments? Post your thoughts in the space provided below or contact the author directly at [email protected]. We welcome your feedback.
