Last update - 00:00 22/11/2007
Osem recalling snacks containing lead in prize jewelry
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
Osem will remove from store shelves tens of thousands of bags of salty snacks containing jewelry for children with a lead content 3.5 times the permissable amount.
The recall was ordered by the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry.
"The danger is not immediate, like electrocution, but there is clear danger," ministry standards director Grisha Deitsch said on Thursday.
Osem initially rejected the ministry's request to recall individual bags of its popular Bamba, Bisli and Dubonim snacks, claiming that the standards did not apply to the prizes included with the product. On Thursday the company reversed its position, at the ministry's instructions.
The lead was found in the laces of the necklace produced for the nationwide Festigal children's music show in December, in a joint million-shekel marketing campaign by Osem and Festigal. The necklaces, packed inside the bags, were to be worn by Festigal performers and and all children in the audience.
The lead was discovered after a woman complained to Osem about a rash on her neck that appeared when she wore one of the necklaces. Osem sent the item for examination to the Standards Institute, which passed its findings to the Industry and Trade Ministry's director of standards.
Deitsch said that Osem first claimed the standards did not apply to "costume jewelry for children." Later a compromise was reached, by which Osem agreed to issue a consumer warming about the lead content of the lace.
On Thursday some newspapers carried a small advertisement placed by the importer of the laces used in the necklaces. It called the lace used by Osem "substandard" and asked consumers to "use a different lace."
"Giving consumers anemic advice is not enough," the Director of the National Council for the Child, Yitzhak Kadman, wrote to Deitsch, demanding he order the removal of the problematic snacks from the stores.
Deitsch said that he had understood from conversations with Osem officials that the company would recall the snacks, and was surprised when an employee he sent to stores to check found that the snacks were still on sale.
The bags are labeled (in Hebrew) as containing a "toy necklace. Not intended for children under six."
"I don't think a recall is warranted, but I'm doing it because I was instructed to," Osem CEO Aviezer Kaplan said. "All the experts we checked with say there is no danger to public health."
Asked why the company itself did not issue the warning in a prominent way, Kaplan denied that Osem was evading responsibility for the children's health or was concealing anything. "But there is no point in creating unnecessary panic because of a single complaint about a necklace," he said.