Rash decision
09/11/07 11:10 PM
By ED BARK
D-FW television reporters have a knack for prompting national product recalls.
NBC5 Night Ranger Scott Gordon's Valentine's Day scoop on potentially bad batches of Peter Pan and Best Value peanut butter led to shelf-clearing across the country.
Now Fox4 reporter Brandon Todd's piece on skin-irritating, made-in-China flip-flops has caused Wal-Mart to pull them nationwide. The discount chain announced the decision Tuesday (Sept. 11) after Todd's earlier story on a Gun Barrel City woman who developed a rash in the same design as the footwear, which she bought for a dollar. Fox4 had the pictures to prove it, plus far grislier ones from a Florida woman who posted her badly scabbed feet on her Web site.
Wal-Mart contended that "only a few similar claims" were made by "several million" purchasers of the flip-flops. "Nonetheless we are removing the product from our shelves for testing and are preventing our registers from selling them," the company said in a statement.
The flip-flop recall now is getting heavy national play, as did the peanut butter scare.