Mattel Pulls
Contaminated Fisher
Price Toys From Stores
Officials of the Mattel
Costa Rica company and
the Ministerio de
Economía, Industria y
Comercio (MEIC) agreed
to pull thousands of
Fischer Price toys from
Costa Rican store
shelves after it was
found that some contain
lead paint.
The alert came several
days ago as a number of
contaminated toys
manufactured in China
and for sale in stores
all over the country
were found to have used
lead paint.
Yesterday, the ministro
de Economía, Jorge
Woodbridge, and Mattel's
representant in Costa
Rica, Marcial Vargas,
confirmed that the
company, learning of the
error, decided to pull
all its toys from the
marketplace as they
would place the lives of
children at risk.
Vargas said that a total
of 4.900 articles will
be destroyed
immediately, 1.200 of
which were sold to toy
stores and the balance
still in the company's
warehouse.
Vargas said he could not
say how many of the
contaminated toys were
sold to consumers and is
asking buyers to look at
the serial numbers,
located for the most
part at the bottom of
the toys, and compare it
with series 109-7LF to
187-7LF,
The contaminated toys
include Dora la
Exploradora, Elmo, Go
Diego and Come Galletas.
The Dirección de Apoyo
al Consumidor (Consumer
protection agency)
issued a resolution that
prohibits the 38 Fisher
Price distributors from
selling the toys and
accept returns.
Consumers who bought the
contaminated Fisher
Price toys can visit the
Mattel offices located
in Torre Mercedes (now
Scotiabank tower) on
Paseo Colon to return
the toy and obtain a
receipt which can be
cashed in at any Fisher
Price authorized
retailer.
For more information,
Mattel can be reached at
295 6815.
Last month Fisher Price
pulled some one million
toys made in China from
the U.S. market for the
same reason.
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