Officials with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission recently announced two recalls of particular interest to parents of infants and young children.
The largest recall affects some 29 million STEP-iT activity wristbands included in McDonald’s Happy Meals and Mighty Kids Meals served at locations nationwide. The China-made wristbands come in two styles – an Activity Counter and a motion-activated Light-Up Band. The Activity Counter comes in translucent plastic orange, blue or green and features a digital screen that tracks a child’s steps or other movement. The Light-up Band comes in translucent plastic red, purple, or orange and has small lights that blink with the child’s movement. Both styles of activity wristbands have a square face with the words “STEP-iT” printed on them and a push button that activates the wristband. The back of the square face contains the etched words “Made for McDonald’s.”
At the time of this writing, Oak Brook, IL-based McDonald’s had received more than 70 reports of incidents, including seven reports of children developing blisters after wearing the wristbands. The bands can irritate or even burn skin, which carries a risk of infection or permanent scarring.
The CPSC also announced the recall of 255,000 Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature electric bottle and food warmers after six reports of the products overheating, melting, smoking and catching fire. Such incidents pose a significant risk of burn injury and property damage.
Recalled products are made by the United Kingdom-based Mayborn Group and sold throughout the United States in mass merchandise stores including Baby Depot, Bealls Outlet, CVS, Kohl’s, Marshalls, Ross Stores, Sam’s Club, Target, TJ Maxx, Toys R Us, Walgreens and Wal-Mart, as well as online Amazon.com, Diapers.com, Drugstore.com and Quidsi.com.
If you have purchased any of these recalled products and no injuries or property damages have occurred, return them to the retailer for a refund or replacement. However, if one of these products has caused injury to you or your children or damage to your property, keep the product intact, get medical treatment if needed and call 800-251-1111 to speak with a product liability attorney with Jacksonville’s Harrell and Harrell.