Mattel apologizes to China - how nice! What about the consumers of recalled products??

In a recent article describing Mattel's apology to China's Product Safety chief, I'm surprised at what is seemingly glaringly missing from this dialogue - from the consumer side of the issue. I have an appreciation for doing business in Asia, and what saving face is all about - which is surely the driver behind such a public kow-towing on Mattel's part. But, if Mattel's going to take blame for design flaws, then I would think there should be an apology to the core of the business - the consumers who have questioned their holiday purchasing and the parents, grandparents, schools, and other impacted parties who have recently done complete toy inspections to rid their inventories of potentially overly-leaden toys.

The article indicates that Mattel has shipped production of many of its toys to China for over 25 years - so, in theory, there should be fairly solid contractual and design communications processes in place, as well as quality control mechanisms. Perhaps Mattel needs to become more specific in its manufacturing specs: no paints shall contain lead, chromium, etc, or any other carcinogen ....and so on. Perhaps this is one of the lessons learned that China's Product Safety chief is alluding to - I can imagine, for the most part, they are manufacturing to the specs they are provided with, and can't reasonably be expected to assume acceptability levels above and beyond those that are indicated in the specs they're provided.

So, Mattel's apology will likely go a long way to smoothing the relationship that Mattel has had over decades and will likely continue to maintain with China as its primary manufacturer. Perhaps, as the article indicates, averting costly punitive measures as well. That would be just swell!

But, I'm still bothered by why the same level of kow-towing hasn't been made to the forces that keep Mattel in business in the first place - its consumers. Surely they aren't being taken for granted......