Lead Sends Thomas Gifts Back To Station

LOS ANGELES - The first recall was bad enough: a million-plus 'Thomas & Friends' toys pulled because of lead paint. The second was surreal: The maker of the smiley-faced trains sent customers 'bonus gifts' so they would stay loyal - and now some of those toys have been recalled, too.

Even if you're not 3-year-old Zoe McGaha-Schletter, it's yet another mind-bending episode in a cascade of recalls that already had parents fretting over what toys were safe for their kids.

'This is so exactly what the villain in a children's movie would do,' said Zoe's father, Eban Schletter.

The year of the recall rolled on last week when the maker of popular Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway toys issued its second lead paint warning since June. Among the 200,000 or so items on the new list were about 2,000 tainted train cars RC2 sent to customers who turned in recalled items during the summer.

The double recall dredges up issues of global supply chain management and China's role as factory to the world. It also shows how a company that says it is doing everything it can to ensure quality cannot guarantee its products are lead-free.

For Zoe, the consequences are simple: no more Thomas toys.

Her dad is tossing about $500 worth of trains, tracks and trestles from a spread he erected on a table at his Hollywood recording studio. Although just 5 percent of Thomas toys have tested as exceeding the federal limit for lead paint (0.06 percent lead content in a product's paint), Schletter is severing all ties. He wants RC2 to do the same with China.

In June, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that Illinois-based RC2 was voluntarily recalling about 1.5 million items in what would become the first of several major roundups involving lead paint on toys made in China. Children who ingest even small amounts of lead can suffer brain damage; large doses can kill.

By mid-September, the company had recovered about 1 million items, sending bonus gifts to customers who returned a product.

The goodwill gesture flopped when further testing showed that lead in the paint covering about 2,000 'Toad' train cars in the bonus shipment was up to four times higher than acceptable levels. The company has dropped its supplier, Hansheng Wood Products, which made the Toad pieces as well as the items in the first recall.