McDonald's Restaurants (Taiwan) Co yesterday asked Next magazine, a Chinese-language weekly, to apologize for incorrectly reporting that rubber wrist bands sold or given away with meal purchases by the fast-food chain contain high volumes of lead that could pose a threat to consumers.
"The report is misleading and has caused grave damage to McDonald's corporate image and reputation," Fu Zu-sheng (傅祖聲), a lawyer for McDonald's Taiwan, said at a press conference yesterday.
"We demand that the magazine to apologize to us, as well as the parents of 2 million children that were panicked over the report," Fu said.
The cover story of the latest issue of Next indicates that rubber wrist bands offered by McDonald's contain 143.1 ppm (parts per million) of lead, which exceeds the standard acceptable 90 ppm soluble element content.
Fu said Next had confused soluble element content with a different measure, the total element content of lead. The acceptable limit of the latter in Taiwan is 600 ppm, well above the content of the McDonald's wrist bands.
According to the Ministry of Economic Affair's CNS (Chinese National Standard) inspection, the soluble element content and total element content of lead of the wrist bands are 1 ppm and 136 ppm respectively, showing the product complies with regulation and poses no threat to health, Fu said.
"The magazine has used inaccurate information without confirming it with us for the report, which has damaged our brand reputation and also caused great and unnecessary panic among two million households and children in this country," Fu said.
Next should publicize its apology in major print media or on TV for at least two or three days, or McDonald's may take legal action against it, he said.
The wrist-band promotion began this month and all 700,000 bands have been distributed. They were sold for NT$20 each, or given to consumers who ordered a Big Mac.
As of press time yesterday, there was no response from the Next on McDonald's demand.
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