The poll found 83 percent of Americans polled said they associate unsafe toys with China.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The vast majority of Americans surveyed say they associate China with unsafe toys, and they are divided on whether they trust major toy makers to ensure products on store shelves are safe, according to a MSN-Zogby poll released on Monday.
The poll found 83 percent of Americans polled said they associate unsafe toys with China.
Seventy percent said they believed American-made toys were the safest, while 11 percent said toys from Western Europe were the safest and 3 percent said they most trusted toys made in Canada, the poll found.
Last week, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson met with Chinese officials and the two countries agreed to make sure that Chinese-made toys meet U.S. safety standards.
!ADVERTISEMENT!Toy safety ignited as an issue during the middle of the year with Mattel Inc and other companies recalling millions of Chinese-made toys for lead or other hazards.
Several companies sent their executives to Congress to pledge that their toys were safe, but with only mixed results.
Just 42 percent of Americans polled said they associated large manufacturers like Mattel, Walt Disney Co and Hasbro Inc with safe toys while 43 percent did not. But the poll found that 40 percent believed that smaller toy companies were no better at ensuring their products were safe.
The majority of toys sold in the United States are made in China, including most action figures, Barbie dolls and inexpensive tricycles.
The Zogby Interactive poll of 4,103 adults was done between November 14 and16 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points.
