Good Lead Results! And more from Thomas.

Just to let you know (thanks for the prayers,) my children are in a safe zone for lead in their blood! I’m so glad. The tests came back much sooner than I thought they would.

Today the International Herald had an interesting article on the Thomas & Friends Lead Recall situation.

When it first announced the recall, RC2 said its customers would have to cover shipping costs to mail back the trains. It reversed that decision after parents reacted angrily, but it is still going to wait about two months to send the postage refunds. Why? “Because finance is in another building,” as one customer service employee on RC2’s toll-free hotline told me.Most important of all, the company hasn’t yet explained how the lead got into the trains or what it’s doing to avoid a repeat. Like their counterparts at HIT, the RC2 executives have stayed silent.

Battening down the hatches might work if this were a scandal about sweatshop conditions. Fairly or not, Americans have a limited attention span when it comes to human rights problems on the other side of the world. But the prospect of lead paint in your child’s nervous system tends to focus the mind.

The fact that the executives at HIT and RC2 haven’t grasped the difference shows how out of date the corporate script on outsourcing has become. In many businesses, outsourcing has simply grown too big to stay behind the curtain. What happens in Chinese factories determines how good - how reliable and how safe - many products are.

So there is no way for executives to distance themselves from China without also distancing themselves from their own product.

Read entire article…

I responded to the author David Leonhardt via email because I could not seem to find out from anywhere if RC2 Corporation was willing to pay for blood testing our children for lead.

Mr. Leonhardt,

Thank you so much for your story in the Herald today regarding the Thomas recall and the problems with outsourcing. What I can’t seem to find anywhere is if they are going to cover the costs of blood tests for lead poisoning, and if a class action is started against them yet? I have some of the trains, and i have a 3 year old and 1 year old. They chew on them… paint is chipped. My pediatrician ordered a blood test right away and I’m waiting for results. This is going to blow up into a huge matter if children have lead poisoning as a result. I suppose I’m writing you in response to this with the hope that maybe you have these answers? or you may find them and write on them. I’m so upset about this problem. I for one will not be returning my trains until I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my children are not effected.

Thank You,
(my name)

To my total shock, he wrote me back!

Thanks, Elizabeth.

The customer-service representative on the RC2 hotline told me that many parents have been asking whether the company will cover the cost of the lead tests but that the company will not be. If you want to call the number for yourself, it’s 866-725-4407. And I’ll post this exchange in our reader response section.

David

Now why won’t O’Reilly write me back? (please know I’m kidding- I mean, I DID write him, but in hopes it was a story his team would consider airing, but he has never written back to my other ideas, so why would he this time?- LOL)

I have not been able to find the section or reader reaction he is talking about, but I’m glad I’m in it!

Previous posts regarding Thomas Recall and reasons to Boycott China:
Thomas & Friends Recall- Update Part 2
Thomas & Friends Recall Update
Thomas & Friends Recall
China Organ Harvesting
Still Thinking about Women in China
61 Women Forced to Have Abortions in China