KEY POINTS:
The makers of a television programme is refusing to apologise for claims - since rubbished - that formaldehyde levels in clothing imported from China were dangerously high.
A spokesman for Top Shelf, the production company for TV3's consumer affairs programme Target, said today it believed that no apology was necesssary.
Target sparked a national outcry and a government probe in August when it revealed that its tests had found dangerous levels of formaldehyde in children's clothes, with some tests showing levels up to 900 times the level that causes harm.
However, it later emerged Target has used the wrong test.
It tested clothing for total formaldehyde content rather than for unbound "free" formaldehyde - the amount of the chemical that easily comes loose from the garment and is potentially dangerous.
Target used the results from the total formaldehyde tests and compared them against standards for free formaldehyde.
"I don't think an apology should be made," Top Shelf spokesman Laurie Clarke said.
"I think the most important thing to come out of this is that at the time we did our investigation, there were no standards, there were no guidelines in place. Now there are.
"Now the New Zealand consumer can actually have some confidence the products they buy are going to be free of formaldehyde."
He said the purpose of the programme was not to target any particular retail company, importer or brand of clothing.
"We were purely trying to draw attention to the fact that there was no monitoring happening and there were no standards in this country. There are standards over the rest of the Western world, but we didn't have any."
Consumer Affairs Minister Judith Tizard yesterday said the ministry had performed the correct test on 99 items.
Of those items 97 had no detectable, or very low levels, of free formaldehyde.
Two items were above the acceptable level of 100 parts per million, but simple washing had reduced it to an acceptable level.
"Target used the wrong testing method which is why their results were so dramatically different," she said.
Ms Tizard said she wasn't prepared to speculate on whether TV3 should apologise to Chinese manufacturers for the programme, which she described as "ill-judged".
"Target made some pretty strong accusations about the goods being unsafe, and I know the Chinese community here was very hurt on behalf of manufacturers in China.
"I think (apologising) is a question they have to examine, but I'm not telling them they have to."
The Government would still issue a product safety policy statement setting acceptable levels, to provide greater certainty for consumers, she said.
- NZPA
