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Recalls of Foreign-Made Products Lead to Increased Scrutiny at Home

By Kimberly H. Clancy and Brendan P. Sheehey

For companies that provide products made overseas to consumers in the United States, the years 2007 and 2008 may come to be remembered as watershed years. Those two years were plagued by an unfortunate series of high-profile safety recalls that involved products made overseas, namely in China. Seemingly one after another, recalls announced by the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) and the Consumer Products Safety Commission (“CPSC”) had American consumers checking the food that their pets ate, the toys that their children played with and the medicine that their doctors prescribed.

The recalls were unsettling in both scope and detail. They included:

  • Pet food tainted with melamine that allegedly sickened or killed hundreds of cats and dogs (See, e.g., Food and Drug Administration, FDA's Update on Tainted Pet Food, April 22, 2007, available at http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01615.html);
  • Popular brands of toys with surface paints that contained lead and could be toxic if ingested by young children (See, e.g., Consumer Products Safety Commission, RC2 Corp. Recalls Various Thomas & Friends' Wooden Railway Toys Due to Lead Poisoning Hazard, June 13, 2007, available at http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07212.html, and Consumer Products Safety Commission, Mattel Recalls Various Barbie' Accessory Toys Due to Violation of Lead Paint Standard, Sept. 4, 2008);
  • A line of toys coated in a chemical that, if ingested, may have caused children to become comatose, develop respiratory depression, or have seizures (Consumer Products Safety Commission, Spin Master Recalls Aqua Dots ' Children Became Unconscious After Swallowing Beads, Nov. 7, 2007, available at http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08074.html); and
  • A common blood-thinning medication contaminated with oversulfated chondroitin sulfate that supposedly triggered serious allergic reactions and severe hypotension in some patients (Food and Drug Administration, Questions and Answers on Heparin Sodium Injection, June 18, 2008, available at http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/heparin/heparinQA.htm).

The negative publicity and concern generated by the 2007 and 2008 recalls described above have since ushered in increased government oversight of products made overseas, as well as sweeping legislation aimed at protecting consumers. This article discusses recent federal government action in response to the recalls and related emerging issues of which international manufacturers, importers and the attorneys who advise them should be aware.

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