While the Ho Chi Minh City market watchdog ordered its force to inspect and recall a type of Chinese doll that has been proven to be toxic, a quality management agency also announced that it has found yet another Chinese toy to have an excessive content of the same hazardous substance.

The agency in charge of overseeing product quality under the Directorate for Standards, Metrology, and Quality (STAMEQ) reported on Wednesday that the amount of phthalate—a chemical that can cause cancer and infertility in men—in the Chinese fruit-head dolls is much higher than the allowed content.

The dolls with watermelon- and strawberry-shaped heads are banned in many European countries due to their toxicity.

STAMEQ has thus issued a document recommending that relevant agencies check and recall the products, while warning parents not to buy the toxic dolls for their children.

Just a day after the conclusion from the STAMEQ agency, the Southern Product Quality Management Agency announced that it has found “knobby balls,” a toy also made in China, to contain an excessive amount of phthalate.

Tran Van Xiem, chief of the agency, told Tuoi Tre on Thursday that they had the quality tests carried out by the Quality Assurance and Testing Center 2 (Quatest 3).

The phthalate content of the ball is 400,000 mg/kg, or 400 times higher than the standardized rate of 1,000 mg/kg in the EU and the US, Xiem said, citing data from Quatest 3. Vietnam has yet to develop a safety norm for the chemical.

Xiem said samples of the ball have been taken from toyshops on Ngo Nhan Tinh Street in District 5. There, the toys are sold without any usage information or safety caution, he said.

The balls, made of plastic and covered with small lumps, are also available in toyshops on Phan Dinh Phung and Tran Binh streets at only VND15,000 (US$0.70) and are popular thanks to the cheap price.

The knobby ball is the fourth Chinese toy found to contain an excessive amount of phthalate so far, following animal ride-on toys, radio-controlled toy cars, and fruit-head dolls.

Asked why STAMEQ did not collect samples of more toys besides these four products for testing, chief of the agency Ngo Quy Viet said it could not do so due to a limited budget.

In 2013, STAMEQ was allocated only VND3.1 billion for this activity, but the budget dropped to VND2.3 billion this year, Viet said.

“As per current law, businesses that sell the toxic products should cover the test expenses, but in reality it is not simple to get their money,” he admitted.