Jump to:
ZRecs Home |
Z Recommends |
PRIZEY |
The Tranquil Parent |
Punnybop |
The ZRecs Guide to Safer Children's Products
Get Z Recommends posts and links delivered free via -
-
As seen in
Carter’s tagless rashes update: Company admits some clothing still not Oko-Tex certified
By Jeremiah | October 12, 2009 | 18 comments / Join the conversation!
Adlanna, in her Fall 07 Carter's onesie. Photo from the blog Carter's Tagless Nightmares.
The tagless labels in Carter's infant and toddler clothing have been identified as the cause of rashes among infants that range from mild discomfort to weeks-long, "earlobes to ankles" rashes that are very unpleasant to look at, let alone imagine our own children suffering through. Carter's ongoing position has been that the problem affects only a small percentage of wearers; that reactions to the company's clothing are confined to their Fall 07 line, for which they have been processing refunds in the hundreds and even thousands of dollars from worried parents for almost a year, no receipt required; and that they strive to produce products that meet the most stringent quality and safety standards possible. While it's impossible for us to quantify the number of children who have suffered from a reaction, an argument against the second claim from Kristen O'Donnell (one of the several frustrated parents who have also taken their story to the TV news offered some unexpected insight into the third claim as well.
Both Carter's Senior Director of Consumer Affairs Janell Cleveland and CEO Michael Casey told ZRecs in October 2008 that they had switched to new Öko-Tex certified Avery-Dennison labels for their Spring 09 line. We trust Öko-Tex certification - it's a rigorous testing standard that proves that a material is free of all kinds of potentially harmful and irritating stuff, including not only phthalates and formaldehyde, but potentially irritating dyes and heavy metals. It is expensive, exhaustive, and constantly evolving. To us, this meant that Carter's had found a way to definitively end whatever exposure was causing whatever portion of their customers to break out in irritating rashes and, on occasion, dangerous secondary infections.
But then, several weeks ago, we got an email from Kristen because, she said, her son Jack had developed full-body rashes that persisted for a month from Carter's clothing, but had never been exposed to their Fall 07 line. When we followed up with her on the phone, things got even more interesting.
Kristen told us that a Carter's representative had stated to her that although she wasn't at liberty to name Carter's label suppliers, the company currently gets its labels from four different ones - Avery-Dennison was just one of them. We followed up with Carter's directly, because customer service reps say a lot of crazy things. Janell Cleveland herself told us that yes, in fact, they do use four different suppliers.
"You said you had switched to Avery-Dennison's ECO Heat Transfer Labels," I said. "That's what we wrote."
Yes, Cleveland said, they had - from the other Avery-Dennison labels. But that was just for those labels - they still used three other U.S.-based suppliers.
Let me interject here with the text that appears on Carter's website, in the "Message from Carter's" the company published to inform consumers about issues with their tagless labels.
Please reread the first sentence, and then that last paragraph again, and firm up, for yourself, what that means. Now, back to me and Janell:
Me: "Are those other three suppliers' labels Öko-Tex certified?"
No, Cleveland said, but "we hold all of our label suppliers up to the same high standards."
"But you're not," I said. "You're not holding them to the Öko-Tex standard, which is a third-party standard that tests and demonstrates that materials are free of the items on their list. So you may be holding them to some standard, but you aren't holding them to as high a standard."
"We wouldn't describe it that way," Cleveland said.
Upon further interrogation, Cleveland stated that "around ninety percent" of Carter's garments used the new Avery-Dennison labels, and thus that same 90% are Öko-Tex certified. Put another way, ten percent of their garments use the same ingredients they did in 2007. Carter's garment labels use less ink than they did in 2007 - this change came with their Spring 2008 line - but examples like Jack's challenge the claim that this has solved the problem. Carter's has never admitted to knowledge of what ingredient in any of their labels was causing reactions among children, and as Carter's has stated repeatedly to us that they have identified no correlation between a particular label vendor, country of origin, or garment type and the rate of infant reactions to their labels, there is, categorically, no defensible position from which to claim that the problem has been eliminated. That's what the Öko-Tex certification was supposed to do, and that, in our opinion, is why they positioned that change front and center, despite the fact that it was not being implemented across their entire line.
And that, sadly, is why this story is not yet over for some of the parents who, a full year after our original report on Carter's tagless irritants, buy and put their babies in newly-purchased Carter's clothing.
Of course, the story isn't over for Carter's, either. They're in the middle of a class-action lawsuit which, plaintiff's lawyers have been careful to point out, was not filed using language that would confine it to Carter's Fall 07 line. I asked Cleveland about Kristen O'Donnell. "We believe that one of her children may have worn one garment from the Fall 07 line," she said. "Sometimes it's unclear from what the parents have been able to identify what a child has been exposed to, and we believe her child may have worn an item from the Fall 07 line and then garments from the later line. But we believe in our conversations with Kristen we have been able to clear up the situation for her and that she is satisfied with how we have resolved the situation."
I followed up with Kristen over email and asked her if this rang true to her.
"Carter's has been well aware from the very first moment I spoke with Lisa Schweda in Consumer Affairs that the clothing both of my twins have worn has the new label design, and not the older label," she wrote in a lengthy response. "I am very well aware by now what the label design from the Fall '07 line looks like, and just to be perfectly clear, my children have never worn any clothes with this older label. Simply put, we have never owned and my children have never worn any article of clothing from Carter's that has that distinct older design. I have photographed every piece of Carter's clothing that I owned with close-ups of the labels, and it is quite clear we are only talking about a reaction to the newer 'stenciled' design."
Carter's has since agreed to pay Jack's medical expenses, but Kristen isn't finished yet. She wants to know what's in the labels, and it's not because she's idly curious.
"I would like Carter's to reveal to me, and the millions of other consumers, which chemicals are being used in their newer labels so that I can work to avoid Jack's future contact with these harmful materials," she wrote to us. "My alternative would be to go on a wild goose chase trying to identify anything Jack may be allergic to through painful and tedious allergy testing, which may not reveal his particular sensitivity; Jack has never had as much as a diaper rash prior to this incident, or afterward."
Kristen's desire is no doubt shared by other parents trying to protect their children from further exposures. Our own experience with monitoring chemicals in children's products gives us the nagging feeling that these "reactives" might be canaries in the coal mine - cases of hypersensitivity to chemicals that no one should be exposed to. Every time a commenter writes in that their child was fortunate enough not to have a reaction to Carter's clothing, we have to wonder: Are they really comfortable knowing that their baby was exposed to, and probably absorbed, some of the same ingredients that caused these reactions? Would that comfort level shift at all if the ingredient causing the problems had a name?
Kristen was kind enough to send us, at our request, two of the garments she suspected as being likely sources of the irritant for her son Jack. Both of them are clearly post-Fall 07 garments. ZRecs has also purchased three new garments from the Fall 07 line, with tags still attached, from eBay, the place where forgotten merchandise goes for a new lease on life.
Our job now is to leverage the expertise of our contacts and of testing labs we could work with to narrow down just what we should be doing with these product samples. Product testing costs money that no individual parent, however concerned, is likely to be able to spare. But what if we pooled it? What if parents - both those who have been directly affected by products like Carter's onesies, through the exposures of their children, and those who simply have an interest in seeing the truth come out - shared the costs of testing?
We'll be working up a proposal in the next couple of weeks, and present it to readers for consideration. If you want the testing done, we'll be prepared to make it happen.
Both Carter's Senior Director of Consumer Affairs Janell Cleveland and CEO Michael Casey told ZRecs in October 2008 that they had switched to new Öko-Tex certified Avery-Dennison labels for their Spring 09 line. We trust Öko-Tex certification - it's a rigorous testing standard that proves that a material is free of all kinds of potentially harmful and irritating stuff, including not only phthalates and formaldehyde, but potentially irritating dyes and heavy metals. It is expensive, exhaustive, and constantly evolving. To us, this meant that Carter's had found a way to definitively end whatever exposure was causing whatever portion of their customers to break out in irritating rashes and, on occasion, dangerous secondary infections.
But then, several weeks ago, we got an email from Kristen because, she said, her son Jack had developed full-body rashes that persisted for a month from Carter's clothing, but had never been exposed to their Fall 07 line. When we followed up with her on the phone, things got even more interesting.
Kristen told us that a Carter's representative had stated to her that although she wasn't at liberty to name Carter's label suppliers, the company currently gets its labels from four different ones - Avery-Dennison was just one of them. We followed up with Carter's directly, because customer service reps say a lot of crazy things. Janell Cleveland herself told us that yes, in fact, they do use four different suppliers.
"You said you had switched to Avery-Dennison's ECO Heat Transfer Labels," I said. "That's what we wrote."
Yes, Cleveland said, they had - from the other Avery-Dennison labels. But that was just for those labels - they still used three other U.S.-based suppliers.
Let me interject here with the text that appears on Carter's website, in the "Message from Carter's" the company published to inform consumers about issues with their tagless labels.
What is in the Fall 2007 labels?
We purchase the tag-less labels directly from multiple U.S.-based label suppliers. The suppliers are aware of our quality and safety standards and have provided us with third-party test results that indicate that the labels are in compliance with all existing safety and quality standards. The label contains the standard ink formulation used by many companies on literally billions of garments in the United States. The label is applied by means of a standard screen transfer, similar to an iron-on screen print, the same type of technology used for many years and on many types of garments. The specific ingredients and relative percentages of the ink formula for the label vary depending on the colors and style of the particular label, but it is our understanding from the manufacturers that it is generally the same type of ink that has been used on clothing for many years ranging from children's clothing to adult intimate apparel.
It appears that a very small percentage of children can be allergic to one or more ingredients in the labels. The solid, rather than stenciled, background on the Fall 2007 labels appears to have produced a more pronounced and noticeable reaction among those children who are most allergic to the ink. For stylistic reasons, Carter’s has switched back to the smaller labels for our Spring and Fall 2008 line.
Starting with the Spring 2009 line, we changed to new Halo-Free ECO Heat Transfer labels that meet Öko-Tex 100 Class 1 requirements. These requirements serve as the “gold standard” for international testing and certification for textile manufacturing to ensure that textile products are free from harmful levels of more than 100 substances that are known to be detrimental to human health. The certification is voluntary, is conducted by independent third-party laboratories, and requires annual testing to remain valid. The new labels are made up of water-based inks, are PVC-free and contain no Azo dyes, no formaldehyde, heavy metals or vinyl products. Additional information about the new labels can be found online at Avery Dennison’s (our primary supplier of labels) Web site or at the Öko-Tex 100 Web site.
Please reread the first sentence, and then that last paragraph again, and firm up, for yourself, what that means. Now, back to me and Janell:
Me: "Are those other three suppliers' labels Öko-Tex certified?"
No, Cleveland said, but "we hold all of our label suppliers up to the same high standards."
"But you're not," I said. "You're not holding them to the Öko-Tex standard, which is a third-party standard that tests and demonstrates that materials are free of the items on their list. So you may be holding them to some standard, but you aren't holding them to as high a standard."
"We wouldn't describe it that way," Cleveland said.
Upon further interrogation, Cleveland stated that "around ninety percent" of Carter's garments used the new Avery-Dennison labels, and thus that same 90% are Öko-Tex certified. Put another way, ten percent of their garments use the same ingredients they did in 2007. Carter's garment labels use less ink than they did in 2007 - this change came with their Spring 2008 line - but examples like Jack's challenge the claim that this has solved the problem. Carter's has never admitted to knowledge of what ingredient in any of their labels was causing reactions among children, and as Carter's has stated repeatedly to us that they have identified no correlation between a particular label vendor, country of origin, or garment type and the rate of infant reactions to their labels, there is, categorically, no defensible position from which to claim that the problem has been eliminated. That's what the Öko-Tex certification was supposed to do, and that, in our opinion, is why they positioned that change front and center, despite the fact that it was not being implemented across their entire line.
And that, sadly, is why this story is not yet over for some of the parents who, a full year after our original report on Carter's tagless irritants, buy and put their babies in newly-purchased Carter's clothing.
Of course, the story isn't over for Carter's, either. They're in the middle of a class-action lawsuit which, plaintiff's lawyers have been careful to point out, was not filed using language that would confine it to Carter's Fall 07 line. I asked Cleveland about Kristen O'Donnell. "We believe that one of her children may have worn one garment from the Fall 07 line," she said. "Sometimes it's unclear from what the parents have been able to identify what a child has been exposed to, and we believe her child may have worn an item from the Fall 07 line and then garments from the later line. But we believe in our conversations with Kristen we have been able to clear up the situation for her and that she is satisfied with how we have resolved the situation."
I followed up with Kristen over email and asked her if this rang true to her.
"Carter's has been well aware from the very first moment I spoke with Lisa Schweda in Consumer Affairs that the clothing both of my twins have worn has the new label design, and not the older label," she wrote in a lengthy response. "I am very well aware by now what the label design from the Fall '07 line looks like, and just to be perfectly clear, my children have never worn any clothes with this older label. Simply put, we have never owned and my children have never worn any article of clothing from Carter's that has that distinct older design. I have photographed every piece of Carter's clothing that I owned with close-ups of the labels, and it is quite clear we are only talking about a reaction to the newer 'stenciled' design."
Carter's has since agreed to pay Jack's medical expenses, but Kristen isn't finished yet. She wants to know what's in the labels, and it's not because she's idly curious.
"I would like Carter's to reveal to me, and the millions of other consumers, which chemicals are being used in their newer labels so that I can work to avoid Jack's future contact with these harmful materials," she wrote to us. "My alternative would be to go on a wild goose chase trying to identify anything Jack may be allergic to through painful and tedious allergy testing, which may not reveal his particular sensitivity; Jack has never had as much as a diaper rash prior to this incident, or afterward."
Kristen's desire is no doubt shared by other parents trying to protect their children from further exposures. Our own experience with monitoring chemicals in children's products gives us the nagging feeling that these "reactives" might be canaries in the coal mine - cases of hypersensitivity to chemicals that no one should be exposed to. Every time a commenter writes in that their child was fortunate enough not to have a reaction to Carter's clothing, we have to wonder: Are they really comfortable knowing that their baby was exposed to, and probably absorbed, some of the same ingredients that caused these reactions? Would that comfort level shift at all if the ingredient causing the problems had a name?
Kristen was kind enough to send us, at our request, two of the garments she suspected as being likely sources of the irritant for her son Jack. Both of them are clearly post-Fall 07 garments. ZRecs has also purchased three new garments from the Fall 07 line, with tags still attached, from eBay, the place where forgotten merchandise goes for a new lease on life.
Our job now is to leverage the expertise of our contacts and of testing labs we could work with to narrow down just what we should be doing with these product samples. Product testing costs money that no individual parent, however concerned, is likely to be able to spare. But what if we pooled it? What if parents - both those who have been directly affected by products like Carter's onesies, through the exposures of their children, and those who simply have an interest in seeing the truth come out - shared the costs of testing?
We'll be working up a proposal in the next couple of weeks, and present it to readers for consideration. If you want the testing done, we'll be prepared to make it happen.
Browse Z Recommends
-
recent posts
How to pose with two snakes Concerns raised over performance of Safety 1st harness adjuster Hands-on building and creativity toys from the 2010 Toy Fair Tyranny in the playroom The year’s best new easy-to-learn, fun-to-play children’s board games 2010 Toy Fair: Toy Fair goes green 2010: Year of the balance bike (and helicopter, and crane, and…) A portrait of the artist having her hair brushed by her mother BPA in toilet paper, fitting in exercise, a yoga game for kids: Links from the archives All dressed up
- categories
- blog archive
- blogs we read
Looking for something?
Search
The ZRecs Guide
1316 products, 250 brands, and counting...
Get ZRecs’ monthly newsletter
Learn about our privacy policy
More good stuff
Advertisements
Advertisements
Even though my daughter did not have a reaction that I noted, I KNOW she wore Carter’s Fall 2007 line. I still have the articles packed away, but now I’m thinking of digging back through my totes of old clothes and throwing those items away. I wouldn’t want to expose another child to these tags knowing this was a possibility.
With 2009, is there any way to tell which tags are the certified ones and which ones aren’t by visual identification?
Krista, I believe there is not any way to tell them apart, at least not one that Carter’s is currently willing to share. Our contact at Carter’s maintained that there was no correlation between garment type, country of origin, or tag supplier and reported reactions. They also stated that there was no clear division in certain tag suppliers serving different countries of origin or garment types. My suspicion is that each tag design is used with all four tag suppliers’ materials, but we have no knowledge of how those selections are made, and indeed, Carter’s would probably maintain that this was a trade secret related to their business operations.
As for your old Fall 07 clothes, you can still turn them in for a refund. There is really no reason a garment should not be expected to have a useful life beyond a single child’s wearing of the garments, and as a consumer you have the right to expect this, whether you were going to hand down the garments to a relative, sell them secondhand, or use them for another child of your own.
That’s very troublesome to me that they are being so misleading in their ink reformulation. My son experienced rashes last year from Carter’s prior tagless labels - so I avoided them since. I recently tried a tagless (Old Navy brand not Carters) pj’s on him, and the rash came right back on his neck. I have another baby due next month, and I was hoping Carter’s was really committed to using these new Oko-Tex inks on all their products giving me more selection for my newborns clothing. I emailed them a couple months back and they said since Spring 2009 the labels are all water based inks. I asked for photos, and the photos they sent me were of the 2008 lines not 2009 lines which caused me to question the answers I was receiving. I emailed again recently and was told again the inks are now all the water based Okotex from Spring 2009 and onwards, and linked to their website update with photos. If only one of the 4 suppliers are OkoTex like they said to you - they are being very misleading saying all the inks are compliant to this standards. I am very interested in what your tests come up with on the newer labels that they say are water based, will be following closely. Thanks for your work on this and keeping us informed!
This is awesome. I’ve just been waiting for the day when Zrecs does some of its own testing. I interviewed scientists that do testing for chemicals in water (for a story at http://tinyurl.com/ygfvqvg ). They said their expenses were about 80 dollars per test - that figure may be for repetitive tests and may ignore the overhead cost of setting up unique tests. Still, I’ll bet a pool of concerned parents and journalists could make some serious progress in the identification of toxic ingredients in our environment.
I would definitely be interested in supporting this research, despite the fact that my daughter has never shown a reaction the tag. I am growing increasingly irritated and intolerant with companies that play word games in the name of protecting their bottom lines and at the expense public health and public safety. I do not expect any corporation to be flawless and consistently able to predict the negative consequences of its actions, but I do expect it to take full and corrective action when a problem is discovered--not merely create the appearance of change until confronted again. It’s this kind of citizen journalism and consumer activism that has kept me coming back to this site since I learned about you on Jumping Monkeys over two years, ago.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and support, everyone. I need to chime in to mention that this testing will cost more than you might think - the lab we’re in talks with charges between $250 and $350 per garment for phthalates testing, for example, which is one of the roads we’d probably go down. We haven’t collected final costs for some of the other tests we could do, and will need to put together a sort of portfolio of tests with the greatest value for the expense (this includes strategic decisions regarding which of the garments we have that should be tested, and for what), and then put that cost in front of readers to see if we can raise the money from our readership.
Although my child wasn’t (visibly, as you point out) affected, I’ll be looking for that proposal, and more than happy to contribute to the effort. You’re doing great things here, and I’ll bet you’ll be surprised by the level of support you’ll get.
Thank you for keeping this issue alive. I would not have been aware of it were it not for Zrecs. While my children have not shown an allergic reaction to Carter’s tagless clothing (or the hundreds of other brands that now do this), I am so uncomfortable with this IDEA of these chemicals sitting against my children’s skin that I have taken to putting a bandage over the labels in their pajamas, knowing that they would be sleeping on it for 10-12 straight hours. I am anxious to see what new events unfold and hope that your efforts result in a dramatic shift in manufacturing.
I’ll chip in! Thank you!
I had a baby in August of 2007; he wore mostly hand-me-downs from his 2004-born brother, but we did have some new carter’s outfits. We didn’t have a red welt on the back of the neck like the babies pictured, but he DID (and does) have lots of skin sensitivities and rashes and eczema that we didn’t encounter with child #1.
I just wonder if exposure do these strange and caustic chemicals at such a tender age and stage in development can cause long term problems and skin allergies?
And I thought BPA was our biggest worry at the time!
I was concerned that some of my son’s newborn undershirts were from the Fall ‘07 line and even after he had worn them all, I was able to take them into Carter’s for a credit towards future purchases. I will say that I continued to put my son in Carter’s undershirts and onesies until now and I’m debating otherwise. Similar to the poster cancan, my son has had unexplained eczema and skin sensitivities (I had previously been investigating food allergies but now I’m wondering if it could be clothing related)?? Maybe it’s time to return my latest set of purchases to the Carter’s store?
Have you tried to contact the folks at http://www.healthystuff.org? As they already are testing for chemicals in toys, maybe they could do the testing for a lower price?
Thanks for the suggestion, Monika! Healthy Stuff uses an XRF scanner to get baseline readings of heavy metals and PVC in products. We have arrangements to have similar testing done for free through a similar organization. XRF scanning can’t catch detect phthalates, however, which is one of the main things we want to test for. But we will rely on the XRF scanning to identify whether we should do destructive testing for heavy metals, which is more accurate than XRF.
My daughter, who has no other skin issues, is one of the unlucky children who gets a nasty rash from the tagless clothing. While I am so grateful that Carters is being called to the mat (I hope I used that phrase correctly), I am concerned about all the other companies who have gone tagless too. A few weeks ago I put a Circo/Target shirt on DD, which had a small stenciled tag. By the end of the day the tag-spot on her back looked like red sandpaper. If tagless tags are the wave of the future, do I have to research each company’s tags to figure out if the inks are Oko-Tex certified? And can I be certain Oko-Tex certified shirts won’t cause a rash? I appreciate all the information that Zrecs has already gleaned and would be more than happy to support Zrecs tag-testing efforts.
I just wanted to sincerely thank you for all that you do. Its easy to feel overwhelmed in trying to protect my baby from both visible and invisible hazards, but people like you help tremendously. Thank you for becoming the voice for so many parents out there who do not know where to begin in trying to make corporations accountable for the safety of their products. As just one mom, I do not have the impact and resources to make a difference and create awareness for change. Together, however, we CAN make a difference. Here’s to a healthier world, one step at a time.
Thanks for speaking up, Ava. Oko-Tex certification, if I understand it correctly, tests for the 100 chemicals of greatest concern at any given time. A few will rotate in or out but the list is pretty stable. The organization also publishes limit levels for all the chemicals it tests for, and these are extremely low - much, much lower than any regulatory body.
That said, no, you can’t be certain they won’t cause a rash - there is still the chance that something could be in the clothing that was causing irritation in some percentage of children. But it is the best way we know of to limit as many potential irritants as possible.
We believe that companies should start using Oko-Tex certified labels, and that consumers should be able to see this on packaging or on garments themselves (why not print it on the tag?).
We, too, are concerned about the full spectrum of tagless brands, not just Carter’s. Stay tuned for news on that, next week or the week after.
Titiana, thank you for your kind words. They keep us going at those low moments when the costs of what we do threaten to outweigh the benefits.
I couldnt understand what was giving my daughter a rash at the nape of her neck. Almost like a burn recently. Then it dawned on me the tagless tag. I just started searching on the web. The majority of my 2yr olds shirts arre from Old Navy. I see alot about Carters does anyone have information about old navy and the same issue. Thank you for any help