Recalls spark safety fears among parents

Still,, it is impractical for most parents to take drastic action such as avoiding all toys made in China. For one thing, with most toy manufacturers relying at least partly on cheaper overseas production, that would make it all but impossible to shop for children this holiday season.

Mattel, for example, said Tuesday that 65 percent of the toys it sells are made in China.

Mays said parents could only buy their kids books — before remembering that there reading material has been subject to recalls.

"It is almost impossible to avoid toys made in China," he said.

Mattel vowed Tuesday to significantly increase its own oversight of its toy production in China. But the company conceded that there could be more recalls.

“We may have additional issues, but what’s important here is we understand where the violation occurred. … And we’ve now taken steps to make sure that that cannot happen again,” Chief Executive Bob Eckerd told journalists in a conference call.

Meanwhile, the toy industry sought to assuage concerns about the recent recalls, noting that they affect only a tiny portion of the $22 billion toy industry.

“We think that … any toys that have safety issues are being caught, and I have no reason at this point to think that there’s going to be a cascade of additional recalls,” said Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industry Association, a trade group.

Keithley also said he didn’t expect toy companies to start migrating production back to the United States, a move that could prove extremely costly to manufacturers.

“The toy industry was one of the early ones to migrate production to China 30 years ago, and it has sourced toys from China very reliably and very safely,” he said.

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