The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced in mid-March that over-the-shoulder baby slings can be deadly and warned parents to use them with caution. The warning came after more than a dozen babies died while using the slings, according to ABC News. In response to the CPSC warning, Infantino LLC, the company behind one [...]

Regular Ethisphere readers are aware of a number of issues that have affected Johnson & Johnson in the past, namely the (still ongoing) problems with their Ortho Evra birth control patch. Along those lines, Bloomberg published an interesting story claiming that Johnson & Johnson has paid – at a minimum – $68.7 million in private [...]

Thanks to a settlement announced last Thursday, 3M Company will have to change the labels of their tape products and pony up nearly $700,000 for allegedly misrepresenting the physical dimensions of their tape by six percent. 3M was accused of mislabeling its products by Fresno, California’s Division of Measure Standards, which brought suit against

H&M is the second largest retailer in Europe and has stores around the world, and now it no longer accepts wool from Australia. This came about after the Australian wool industry showed signs of hesitation on its plan to stop mulesing sheep by 2010. Though H&M admittedly uses only a “very small selection of merino [...]

Remember all those Mattel toy recalls last year? Apparently it didn’t cripple the company as much as some experts predicted. The Motley Fool posted an interesting article yesterday on the tenuous recovery of the company. Mattel’s fourth-quarter earnings are up 15% over last year, and the stock price – still drastically

Target became the most recent retail company in the United States to announce it would end the use of polyvinyl chloride (more commonly known as PVC) in some of the products it sells, most notably children’s paraphernalia like eating utensils and lunch boxes. By 2008, the company wants to eliminate PVC from changing tables, bibs [...]

Johnson & Johnson recently agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle allegations that its Ortho Evra birth control patch was responsible for the death of a 14-year-old Wisconsin girl. Just two weeks ago, J&J settled a separate lawsuit over a death allegedly caused by the patch as well. In fact, J&J has settled dozens of [...]

Less than a week after announcing a 21.7 million pound recall of ground beef, Topps Meat closed its doors. The recall, one of the largest beef recalls in U.S. history, was initiated because the meat was potentially contaminated with E. coli. It was the first recall for the company, founded 67 years ago.

Nearly 22 million pounds of meat were recalled last Wednesday after E. coli bacteria was suspected to be in the meat, resulting in at least 25 injuries. Topps Meat, Co. recalled the meat, which included ground beef and those packages that have either a “sell by” or “best if used by” date between September 25, [...]

A disturbing, underground pastime among Canadian teens was uncovered on Tuesday after a 14-year-old boy was admitted to a hospital for first-, second- and third-degree burns. What is the new hobby? Covering various objects in body spray, particularly Axe and Tag brands, and lighting them on fire.

Chicago based Kolcraft Enterprises Inc. had 425,000 of its play yards recalled yesterday following the death of a 10-month-old Texan boy. With 11 different models involved, this is the second significant recall of a nursery product in a week, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune.

Melbourne based Camden Neon Pty Ltd has been fined $300,000 Australian dollars by the Victorian County Court after pleading guilty to “failing to provide a safe work environment.” 26-year-old Sion Rees died after attempting to remove broken glass from a light fitting with improper tools. Judge Sue Pullen said the company had “insufficient” safety conditions [...]

A new study commissioned by the Food Standards Agency, an independent UK government department established to protect public health, found that certain artificial colors and additives in food can lead to hyperactivity disorder in children. It’s believed that the new study will pressure the food and drink industry to remove certain artificial colors and additives [...]

New research coming out of Australia suggests that office laser printers can damage lungs in a very similar way as smoke particles from cigarettes. A team of Australian scientists from the Queensland University of Technology found that almost a third of all business laser printer models emit dangerous levels of toner particles into the ambient [...]

Fisher-Price has announced a recall of nearly one million Chinese-made toys over concerns of lead-based paint. 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 [...]

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 [...]

We’ve all heard stories of attorneys that charge an arm and a leg (and possibly your first-born) for their services. But N.C. Superior Court Judge Ben Tennille was less than forgiving in his recent criticism of a Sears class action settlement in which attorneys collected almost 400 times the amount that the plaintiffs received. Tennille [...]

According to an exclusive report coming out of Bloomberg, Medtronic, the world’s largest maker of electronic heart devices, has agreed to pay more than $75 million to settle lawsuits claiming it hid defects in its defibrillators. Medtronic has been facing approximately 2,000 claims over battery defects in the defibrillators which are potentially fatal and had [...]

European papers are reporting that Cadbury Schweppes has been ordered to pay over $2 million in fines for allegations that some of its chocolate had been contaminated with salmonella bacteria. The company, who pled guilty to charges that it violated food and hygiene regulations at an earlier hearing, was fined for selling an unsafe product [...]

On Tuesday of last week, China executed its former chief food and drug regulator (Zheng Xiaoyu, age 62) for taking nearly $1 million in bribes from eight pharmaceutical companies to approve medicines. Reportedly at least six of the medicines turned out to be fakes – and some of the ingredients caused bodily harm. According to [...]

Actually the proper term from the nuclear cold war drill of the 1950s is “duck, cover and roll.” However, the “roll” part seems inappropriate today as Online Tire Review (yes, there really is such a website – www.tirereview.com) broke the news yesterday that Foreign Tire Sales (FTS), the New Jersey importer at the center of [...]

Toshiba has announced that it will redouble its efforts to encourage greater customer response to its recall of certain ‘flamable’ Sony batteries that had installed in Toshiba laptops. The original recall had been announced by Sony in September of last year with customers eligible to receive free replacement of the battery packs identified by Sony [...]

RC2 Corporation could soon find itself in the middle of a train wreck. A discovery of paint contaminated with lead prompted the recall of 1.5 million Thomas the Tank Engine wooden trains and other railroad components by the company and the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission. As a result of the investigation, RC2 has recognized [...]

The FDA and Colgate-Palmolive issued warnings this week about counterfeit Colgate toothpaste which may contain a poisonous substance. Thus far, the toothpaste has been discovered in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Apparently, this product does not contain fluoride. Instead, it contains Diethylene Glycol (DEG). DEG is often described by its more layman’s term: [...]

The Kellogg Company announced today that they will rule out advertising its products to children under age 12 unless the foods meet specific nutrition guidelines for calories, sugar, fat and sodium. Additionally, Kellogg intends to stop using licensed characters or branded toys to promote foods unless the products meet the same nutrition guidelines. The plan [...]