The Editor’s Blog
Recent Posts:
- School Days
- Wait, it’s Not Time Yet!
- Unleashing the Artist Within
- Fireworks
- Our Pool
- Keeping Children Safe…One Home at a Time, One Toy at a Time.
- Falling Furniture: A Very Real Home Hazard
- A Choking Averted
- When Cell Phones Interfere with Safe Play
- Springtime Means New Dangers
- Sprawled on the Floor, Doing a Puzzle
- A Worldwide Safety Standard?
- Simple, Universal, Fun
- Spring Cleaning
- Toy Fair is Coming, Bringing the Future of the Industry
A Worldwide Safety Standard?
by Daniel Sean Kaye
“Why can’t we have one mandatory global safety standard for toys?” No, this question isn’t being asked by every parent, grandparent and child advocate in America. It’s being brought up by Alan Hassenfeld, chairman of Hasbro, the US-based toy company, in a recent interview with the Financial Times.
Hasbro wasn’t directly involved in last year’s recalls, so it was easy for Hassenfeld to not sound like he was passing the buck or shifting blame. It was a good thing for him to say (and makes for a good sound bite and solid p.r.), but it is an amazingly complicated issue. We all would like such a thing, but I can’t see any way it would happen.
Who would make these rules and why? Could the U.S. demand certain manufacturing standards be set up in China? If so, how could such standards be adequately enforced? Would these new rules further raise prices (as is rumored to be the unpleasant reality of the upcoming 2008 holiday season)? Would U.S. consumers be willing to pay more money for toys if new security measures led to higher prices? If the public’s responses to the steep financial increases impacting travel due to security are any indication, that answer is no.
These are issues being thrown about all over the toy-making world, as well as in the offices of legislators everywhere. Are we ready to shoulder the burden of higher costs in order to be more certain our children’s toys are safe? Or will we decide to pay less and hope a problem doesn’t happen again?
March 03, 2008