Melissa Doug Recall An Open Letter To Doug Bernstein || ZRecommends: Consumer research, consumer advocacy, and unbiased product reviews for parents

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The Melissa & Doug Recall: An open letter to Doug Bernstein

By Jennifer | December 04, 2009 | 9 comments / Comment now

Photo by abbybatchelder, shared via Flickr.

After publishing our piece on the Canadian recall of Melissa & Doug toys for violating a barium standard that mirrors the limit levels in force in the U.S. (1,000 ppm) we received an email from reader and blogger Candace which included a personal email address for Doug Bernstein, President of Melissa & Doug. We noted in our previous post that we had contacted the owners by email and attempted to reach them by phone - the former a full week ago using the email address ("owners@melissaanddoug.com") that is repeatedly mentioned throughout the site as an indication of the company owners' commitment to direct communication about their products' safety.

When we emailed Mr. Bernstein directly, he responded the same day, and over the course of two emails he provided some information, including the assertion that the toys recalled in Canada meet all U.S. regulatory requirements (here is a Certificate of Conformity [PDF] which states that the toys were tested for compliance in March 2009). Although both the U.S. and Canada require products to contain less than 1,000 parts per million of accessible barium, Bernstein stated that the testing protocol differs, he believe significantly, although he provided no details regarding differences in the testing methods and we have not yet been provided access by any party to the test results that led to the Canadian recall.

Based on the information Mr. Bernstein provided, we have added an update to our initial post with the response from Melissa & Doug.

Over the course of our exchange, however, Bernstein declined to answer several questions we posed in our emails to him, or to provide us with any specific testing documentation for these products. (He did kindly - and I believe sincerely - offer to allow us to send a lawyer to verify their testing data, which we declined.) After two lengthy emails from him containing some useful information, he stated that he did not have time to provide any more information to us. We responded with the following, in which we narrowed our request considerably, and informed him that we would be publishing it so that his willingness to answer those specific questions was out in the open for readers deciding what to do with Melissa & Doug products or considering Melissa & Doug in their holiday shopping.

Doug,

Thank you. I appreciate your frankness and we are always working to improve both our reporting and our methods.

We will update the post with your statement regarding the testing of your products for U.S. and European markets.

Let me refine our request down to the bare minimum. I will also be publishing this email so we (you, us, and our readers) are all on the same page regarding what exactly we are asking for, and whether Melissa & Doug is willing to provide it to consumers concerned about the safety of their products.

To move forward with any new reporting on this story, we need to see, at a minimum, the Canadian test results that led to the recall, including the amount of barium found.

Will you share that document with us, and allow us to publish the level of barium found in the toy? I must confess that if you are unwilling, we will reach out to the appropriate contacts in the Canadian government, or file an Access to Information Request, if there is any possibility of it being provided to us by Canadian regulators.

Also helpful would be answers to these questions, which we posed in our previous email and which you have thus far declined to provide:

* An explanation of the different protocols used for Canadian and U.S. testing for barium in children's products. Alternately, you could provide us with a specific contact at a testing lab who could speak to both of these protocols. We would not expect them to discuss any Melissa & Doug testing directly, just the nature of the two different testing methods and their potential impact.
* The locations of Melissa & Doug factories producing these toys, and the way in which you monitor and check what is happening at these factories. Specifics on this way could go a long way to alleviating some consumer concerns about a brand producing toys on the scale you do while maintaining consistent product quality and safety.

About testing data: We regularly receive test reports from children's product companies indicating that their products pass testing for a variety of chemicals, often as a condition of products receiving a "high" rating of confidence in The ZRecs Guide to Children's Products.

In some cases, redactions to these documents are necessary, and as long as it is clear to us the nature of information that has been redacted, we have never had a problem with this. I think most reasonable people would agree that things like the name of a supplier, ingredients, etc. could be redacted without undermining the authenticity of the document from a consumer perspective. We do not publish these documents unless the company welcomes it, share only information the source agrees to, and do not share them with anyone short of a court order.

I am sure you also agree that, in general, regular "good" test results for a product do not, here or in Canada, indicate that there is a problem with a test method when a product fails a test, or that a product's safety should be judged primarily by the many passing tests rather than the failing ones, however rare they may be. In fact, regular testing is conducted to minimize the chances that these incidents are missed and unsafe products allowed onto the market.

Thanks again for your time. I know this is a very busy season for you.

Sincerely,
Jeremiah McNichols
Z Recommends

We'll keep you posted on what information Mr. Bernstein and Melissa & Doug choose to share.

As we have not received a response to these questions from Mr. Bernstein as of this writing, we have sent a request to Health Canada to provide us with details of the recall, and will follow this up with an Access to Information request if necessary. We also learned (thanks to several readers) that Melissa & Doug has had two previous barium recalls of toys in Canada - a shape stacking toy and a shape stacking train - which received far less attention from parents or the media. Each of these continue to pass U.S. testing requirements (here's a PDF of one of their certs).

We have been mulling over the relationship between Canadian, EU and U.S. regulatory environments and consumers' globalized information-sharing about the safety of children's products. We're looking forward to writing about it soon on Z Recommends, but would be happy to be a source for any blog post or article anyone else would like to write on the subject - if this is a topic that interests you, feel free to contact us at editors@zrecs.com.

Update: Melissa & Doug has responded to our inquiry by sharing lab reports, providing detailed answers to our questions, and making a public pledge to a more stringent testing standard. Read their letter and our analysis.

9 Comments

1. AJsMomma [12/04/09]

Thank you ZRecs for being the voice of many parents out there! Thank you for following up and following through, inquiring, questioning and researching. I know we all appreciate what you do.

2. DeniseEPL [12/04/09]

After all the toy recalls two years ago due to lead linking the source to China toy factories, I raised a weary eye to Melissa and Doug. I can’t tell you how utterly disappointed and saddened I am by a Co that has done every effort to assure customers their products are safe, but are deceptive in their disclosure.

Bottom line for me, Made in China is still Made in China. Shame on Melissa and Doug for charging premium pricing for toxic products. I fell for their charm, hook, line, and sinker. Now they disappear during controversy.

I look forward to an update on what to do with our M&D;products, for they don’t have a home in my house any longer.

3. Heather [12/04/09]

So are you recommending that we be leery of all Melissa & Doug toys or just some or yet to be determined? I got rid of the pounding peg one in one of your recent entries on the Canadian recall. I’m wondering if I am going to have to do the same with puzzles and shape stacking one (not the one formerly recalled in Canada).

Thanks,
heather

4. boo [12/04/09]

In the summer my son received a melissa and doug flashlite as a gift. When I called to inquire what type of plastic it was made of, they told me “non-toxic pvc”. I wasn’t aware there was such a thing! I told them that our family does not approve of pvc. They, after a lengthy “discussion” with me about how safe their products are, they reluctantly wondered if they could send me a replacement product, saying that wood toys might be the only thing I would accept. I then told them....if they are going to sell items made of pvc for children to play with, how can I be sure they would use safe paint for their wood products? Personally, I take issue with people who say pvc is non-toxic!And if a company skimps in one area, wouldn’t they be tempted to skimp in all areas? So, the rep said she would get back to me...and never did. Now I see that I was right to not trust them, nothing they sell. And I will not buy their products for my precious child again. Thank you for all your work--not sure what we would do without you!

5. Natasha [12/05/09]

Thank you for not letting this go! We have 2 out of the three toys and they are going in the trash. We bought my 3 1/2 year old son his first Melissa & Doug train set last year (he had been playing with Plantoys but they were hard to find in our area) and we were very disappointed with the quality. Despite his being a gentle player the paint chipped off and the toys looked worn within a very short time. The Plantoys still look brand new! Maybe they need to offer fewer products and focus more on the quality of them.

6. Gloria [12/06/09]

I am not too surprised at this recall. Anything painted and made in China is sketchy. The paint on all of our Melissa & Doug wooden toys has chipped quite a bit. If your kids are still in the mouthing stage, stick with wooden toys by Haba, Selecta, Vilac and Plan Toys, and always check to see where it was made. Even some of the fancy European brands are made in China.

7. Lynnette [12/06/09]

Is the picture implying I should be worried about the shape stacker the birthday girl is playing with? All M & D toys?

8. Lila [12/08/09]

I have the same question as Lynnette. We have three of the five mentioned toys—as well as the shape stacker in the photo above. What to do?

Also: The Canadian recalls give specific codes for the toys. Are they only certain batches of the toys, or all of the ones made since the barium regulation began?

Thanks for any light you can shed. Too bad Doug Bernstein didn’t shed more.

9. Jeremiah [12/08/09]

Heather, Natasha, Lila, and Lynnette: Please see our new post on this for an update and a Q&A;with Melissa & Doug about this recall and these toys. Whether you choose to stop using the toy based on a Canadian recall is a personal choice, but if you do choose to stop using them, would you consider waiting to discard them until we publish another announcement?

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