Top 10: Product Recalls

Top 10: Product Recalls

There are Chinese-made products coated in lead, E. coli-contaminated food and some very dangerous toys that make you yell, "What the hell were they thinking?" Product recalls have ramped up to global proportions in the last year alone and toy stores can barely clear their shelves fast enough without another very bad toy being condemned.

In that spirit, we bring you some of the most notorious product recalls of all-time, with some making the hazard pile based on the size of the product recall. If you have ever owned one of these products we extend our deepest sympathies, but prepare to be shocked and appalled by the amount of lethal products that have made it past the regulators and simple common sense over the years.

Number 10

Hang Ten mini-hammocks

Amount recalled: 75,000

Between 1994 and 1995, taking a nap in an EZ Sales Hang Ten mini-hammock was absolutely lethal. Just a hammock? Sorry kiddies, but this one lacked those crucial little spreader bars that kept the hammock open when someone was in it, so your 2-year-old nephew would be sleeping away a dog day afternoon when, suddenly, the hammock would collapse and string the boy up like a marionette. By 1996, all 75,000 of the $4 death traps were pulled from the shelves and kids turned to towel dispensers in school bathrooms to get their asphyxiation highs.

Number 9

Dell Inspiron 5000e notebook batteries

Amount recalled: 284,000   

In 2001, Dell recalled 284,000 batteries after they began to overheat and cause laptops to spontaneously combust -- not because they were carrying secret messages to a fleet of secret agents, but because of the faulty casing on the Sony batteries in the Inspiron 5000 and 5000e notebooks. It was just the latest in a series of product recall embarrassments for Dell in the early 21st century. They also had to recall faulty memory chips in the same Inspiron notebooks.

Number 8

Evenflo Embrace car seat

Amount recalled: 450,000

Evenflo, makers of the Embrace car seat line, were singing their own version of “Rock-A-Bye Baby” when they had to make a product recall on 450,000 of the car seats in 2001, after discovering a defective latch. When the seats were converted to a carrier, they would spring forward and flip the little tykes to the pavement. With 160 injuries on their hands, including a skull fracture that would make Humpty Dumpty grimace, all the company could do was offer DIY dads a free repair kit to reinforce the latch.

islike Lawn darts were never recalled, to my knowledge. They just stopped making them. (And I enjoyed mine)

As for Tylenol, I think this list is based more on the idea that the recalled product was defective for a manufacturing reason. Either the design was ill thought (snacktime cabbage patch) or the production method was bad (lead based paint, e coli spinich). Tylenol had a huge recall - But it was based on a specific act of sabotage - a deliberate attempt to hurt someone, rather than the company just screwing up.

Number 7

Fisher-Price toys

Amount recalled: 967,000

Despite Mattel CEO Bob Eckert’s insistence that Fisher-Price has the highest of quality standards, the company was forced to recall a total of 967,000 Fisher-Price toys -- not once, but twice over two weeks. The recall was spurned by the discovery that all the “Made in China” products were packed with copious amounts of lead paint and other toxic chemicals. Other product recalls included toys with small magnets that could be swallowed. Apparently, the magnets could cause severe injury because they were able to stick to human tissue. So, while workers from America’s second-largest trading partner next to Canada promised to improve their health and safety, the makers of Barbie were left clinging to their credibility, doing damage control for a mess that originated on the other side of the Pacific.

Number 6

New Easy-Bake Oven

Amount recalled: 985,000

Remember the Easy-Bake Oven? It was the classic homemaker-in-training toy that produced home-baked goodness under the glow of a light bulb. The classic version put cake-laced smiles on little iron chefs everywhere since the 1950s. However, if there’s anything we've learned when someone slaps a “new” label on anything, it’s that it is really hard to mess with a good thing.

Following that mantra, a product recall of  985,000 New Easy-Bake Ovens was made, as all were literal finger traps with painful consequences. The oven door was just for show and only a small slot was available for sticking the baked good into the oven, so it didn’t take long for the smell of burning flesh to replace the aroma of freshly baked cookies and cakes. One 5-year-old girl had her finger partially amputated, while others suffered second- and third-degree burns. While the original Easy-Bake brought joy to so many, the new one meant the joy of cooking extremities.

Number 5

Aqua Dots

Amount recalled: 4.2 million

Spin Master’s Aqua Dots allowed kids to create multidimensional images with multicolored beads. The dots were meant to open kids aged 3 and up to new and exciting experiences. It turned out, however, if you soaked the dots in water and a toddler happened to give them a little lick, they reproduced the effects of the date rape drug, GHB. Suddenly, daycare workers everywhere began adding something special to juice time. Well, not really, but Spin Master recalled 4.2 million Aqua Dots just in case.

Number 4

Bridgestone/Firestone ATX tires

Number recalled: 6.5 million

Many people trust that the tires on their car are going to keep them on the ground -- unless, of course, you are one of the unfortunate saps who got in a Ford Explorer equipped with Firestone tires. In 2000, these Firestone tires shed their tread-like snake skin, which resulted in about 250 deaths, dozens of lawsuits (some of them class-action) and a parting of ways between Ford and Bridgestone/Firestone, with both companies severing their 95-year relationship after playing the blame game in court. Firestone came out on the losing end, burning rubber, burning millions from their corporate coffers and, in the end, burning 6.5 million tires.

Number 3

Burger King Pokeballs

Amount recalled: 25 million

At the height of the Pokemon craze in the late ‘90s, the Home of the Whopper decided to cash in by sticking little Pokemon action figures into their kids’ meals. Nothing wrong there, right? Well, you can thank the genius at the meeting who decided to stick them in authentic Pokeball containers. For kids under age 3 that meant catching them down their wind pipes, thereby initiating the largest product recall of its time with 25 million units. The two- to three-inch balls caused the momentary suffocation of 13- and 18-month girls. Burger King’s response: Take all the remaining Pokeballs out of restaurants, but bribe customers to bring back their purchased Pokeballs for free small fries.

Number 2

Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing beef

Amount recalled: 143 million pounds

If you ever wanted to know what kind of mystery meat graces the school cafeteria, look no further than what is now the largest beef recall in American history. California’s Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. recalled 143 million pounds of beef in February 2008, 37 million pounds of which had already been ingested by kids as part of their school lunch and -- in a poetic touch of irony that only the Home of the Free could bring -- federal nutrition programs. Don’t worry, now that your faith in America’s school system is restored, know that the beef was recalled not because of contamination, but because of a violation. Sure, they processed cattle that couldn’t walk amidst allegations of animal cruelty that included simulating drowning and pushing the cows with a forklift, but at least the meat was safe.

Number 1

Natural Selection Foods spinach

Amount recalled: All products in 26 states

September and October 2006 saw an absolute decimation of the American domestic spinach crop after a particularly violent strain of E. coli bacteria originated in the spinach fields of Natural Selection Foods in California. Grocery store shelves were cleared and people were warned not to buy bagged fresh spinach or they would suffer the consequences of more than just a bad case of food poisoning. This strain threw the 206 victims across 26 states into full kidney failure, with five deaths linked to the outbreak by the time the mess was cleaned up.

The whole thing meant losses of $74 million for American farmers. A month later, 71 cases of the same strain of the bacteria were reported coming out of Taco Bell chains located in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Although at first the strain was thought to be due to contaminated green onions, a packaging link later determined that the Taco Bell outbreak was also caused by lettuce from the fields of California.

Honorable Mention

Snacktime Cabbage Patch Kids

Product recall: 500,000

Yet another tale of toy terror from our friends at Mattel: When we heard about the Snacktime Cabbage Patch Kids product recall, the story was so delightfully fiendish that we had to sink our teeth into it. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what the 500,000 Snacktime Cabbage Patch Kids did when your kid’s finger got too close. Its motorized mouth with “real chewing action” was supposed to stop with the carrots, who knew the kids in the patch were really waiting for a taste of human flesh? Chucky was a character in a movie, but the army of cannibals from the cabbage patch were real (however briefly) in the mid-‘90s.

Total Recall

We can be thankful that all these products were pulled off the shelves without having a chance to do anymore damage. Yet, that begs the question: What other nasty surprises lay in waiting on our store shelves? What will be the next killer toy, the next contaminated crop or the next incapacitating import? Given what has fallen through the cracks so far in the last decade alone, we’re sure you won’t have to wait long for the answer.

Resources:
http://www.cpsc.gov/
www.ctv.ca
     http://radaronline.com/   

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