The worldwide recall affects 967,000 Nickelodeon and Sesame Street toys, including such popular items the Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday, David Allmark, general manager of Fisher-Price, said the problem was detected by an internal investigation and self-reported to the consumer product safety commission (CPSC).

Under current U.S. regulations, children’s products found to have more than .06 percent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.

Commentary: Understandably, Fisher-Price spun the positives hard to this: an internal probe discovered the contamination and they were able to ‘quarantine’ two-thirds of the toys before they reached store shelves, and that the company would use the recall as an opportunity to put even better monitoring systems in place.

Six weeks ago, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $5.5 million in damages in a Florida lawsuit over a defective pain-killing patch that resulted in the death of a Florida man. While initially the company looked like it would appeal the judgment, they instead tried to settle it quietly for $2.5 million.

An excerpt from Bloomberg provided details on the J&J suit:

Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay more than $2.5 million to settle claims that its Duragesic pain-killing patch caused the death of a Florida man, three people with direct knowledge of the accord said.

The agreement means Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest medical-device maker, won’t have to pay $5.5 million in damages awarded by a jury in June to the family of Adam Hendelson, the people said. The jury concluded Hendelson overdosed on opiate fentanyl when his pain patch leaked the substance in 2003…

The jury in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, found that officials of the Johnson & Johnson units knew about defects in the patches and failed to properly warn doctors and consumers about their risks…

MacDonald, a partner in the law firm of MacDonald Rothweiler Eisenberg, said Johnson & Johnson ultimately may have to work out a global settlement of the 300 to 400 wrongful-death suits over the Duragesic patches. “They’ve lost the only two cases that have gone to trial so far,” he noted. “That should be an indicator to them of things to come.”

Commentary: J&J lost another case on the pain patch in Houston two weeks ago as well. This case reminds of the widely-read article in the Q2 edition of Ethisphere Magazine about the ethical lapses and mishaps which seem to be plaguing Johnson & Johnson – and which can be read here.

In April 2005, Hoover conducted a recall of 636,000 Hoover Self-Propelled Upright Vacuum Cleaners because of defective on-off switches. n June 2004, after CPSC received notice of several vacuum cleaner incidents, the Commission staff requested Hoover provide a full report of incident information. In July 2004, when Hoover submitted a full report, it had notice of 260 consumer incidents, of which 141 involved reports of fire. Additionally, there was one report of a minor burn injury. However, Hoover first learned of a vacuum cleaner switch on one of these units overheating and melting in April 1999.

Under Federal Law, Hoover would have been required to report to CPSC immediately (within 24 hours) after obtaining information reasonably supporting the conclusion that a product contains a defect which could create a substantial risk of injury to the public, presents an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death, or violates a federal safety standard. Hoover did not do – which warranted the fine.