Consumer-protection investigators are checking out the Cabbage Patch Snack Time Kid after several little girls across the country said the doll chomped on their hair and wouldn't let go.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating and will release a statement later Monday, spokesman Rick Frost said Monday. Three of the girls who had their hair chewed were in South Carolina.In Connecticut, where one case was reported, the doll is scheduled to be tested Monday by the state Department of Consumer Protection to see if it meets safety standards.
"What I'm concerned about is whether there is any potential harm for children based on a reasonable, foreseeable use of this toy," said Mark Shiffrin, commissioner of the Connecticut agency.
The doll is designed to chew automatically when plastic french fries or other items are placed in its mouth. It does not have an on-off switch.
More than a half-dozen hair-eating episodes have been reported since Christmas in Florida, Indiana, Connecticut and South Carolina.
Parents reported cutting hair, pulling batteries out or destroying the doll to make it stop its chewing motion.
Doll-maker Mattel has said its products undergo rigorous safety testing and fewer than 10 "isolated" incidents have been reported since the doll went on the market in September.
Victoria Rutland, 9, of Easley, S.C., said the doll snared her hair the day after she received it as a Christmas present. Her parents managed to free the crying child from the doll's still-chewing mouth.
"I think they should take the doll off the market, because I think some child might get seriously hurt," Victoria's mother, Lavinia Rutland, said.
Another South Carolina mother, Gail Spears, almost didn't believe it when her daughter's day-care center called to say what the doll had done.
"I thought, `This is so silly. A doll attached to her head?' "
A doctor had to cut 7-year-old Hanna Spears' locks to free her from the doll, which left a welt on the girl's scalp, Gail Spears, of Rock Hill, told The Greenville News.
"It looked really bad," she said. "She was screaming and trying to hold the doll away from her, and the jaws just kept going and going."
Despite the reports, the dolls are selling well, said Cassie West, manager of a Toys 'R' Us store in Indianapolis.