Here we go again. Another recall of Mattel products has been announced.

Mattel Inc. on Tuesday announced its third major recall of Chinese-made toys in little more than a month, including 675,000 Barbie doll accessories, because of excessive amounts of lead-tainted paint.

The recall is the latest blow to the world’s largest toy maker as the critical holiday shopping season approaches. The action, whose details were negotiated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, involves a total of more than 800,000 units, Mattel said in a statement.

The recall covers 90,000 units of Mattel’s GeoTrax locomotive line and 8,900 Big Big World 6-in-1 Bongo Band toys, both from the company’s Fisher-Price brand. The Big Big World products were sold nationwide from July through August of this year, while the GeoTrax toys were sold from September 2006 through August of this year.

The recalled Barbie accessories were sold between October 2006 and August of this year. No Barbie dolls were included in the action.

This has gotten to the point that perhaps all of the factories in China manufacturing toys for this company should be shut down entirely and production begun again only when materials used are deemed 100% safe.

Mattel will have some serious trust issues to address if and when these recalls come to a halt. I’m not sure they will ever have the reputation they once had as a trusted manufacturer of childrens toys.