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Aqua Dots: the Date Rape Drug
Dracomicron
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Just caught Lou Dobbs tonight. Turns out those Aqua Dots toys that have been flying off of shelves have small, candy-like pieces that metabolize into the equivilent of GHB, the date rape drug, when swallowed.
The Chinese manufacturer decided to cut corners and substituted the safe glue for the stuff sexual predators use to spike people's drinks in bars. Here's a transcript.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/08/ldt.01.html
Australian authorities are the ones that twigged to it eventually, after a cases of kids going into woozy, erratic resperatory states and even some that have even gone into comas or experienced seizures.
There's been a recall, and Toys-R-Us manned up... you can bring your poisonous toy to them to get a refund -even if you didn't buy it there-.
Just a heads up for you early X-Mas shoppers.
The Chinese manufacturer decided to cut corners and substituted the safe glue for the stuff sexual predators use to spike people's drinks in bars. Here's a transcript.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/08/ldt.01.html
Australian authorities are the ones that twigged to it eventually, after a cases of kids going into woozy, erratic resperatory states and even some that have even gone into comas or experienced seizures.
There's been a recall, and Toys-R-Us manned up... you can bring your poisonous toy to them to get a refund -even if you didn't buy it there-.
Just a heads up for you early X-Mas shoppers.
Dracomicron on
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My apologies.
More at 11.
Well, I think these are, for the most parts, chines manufactures, so we are paying for cheap ass products, and they are the ones paying for cheap ass labor.
but... yeah. pretty much.
You think we should protest somehow?
Free market capitalism strikes again.
saying this in reference to the country which has been executing folks in charge of QA(the head of their rough equivalent of the FDA for instance)?
great leap forward in crappy toy production?
They were Most Favored Nation trading partner in the 80's, when we were still afraid of Communists. They're planted so deep in U.S. interests, it would take actual armed conflict for us to break off trade with them... and I'm not sure the corporate lobbyists would stand for that.
They also make things like, say, iPods and digital cameras. They make a ton of shit, and they're perfectly capable of controlling quality to an exceptional degree if the company placing the orders is willing to pay for it.
Er, the point is, they make even the expensive stuff more cheaply than it would be if it were made in a country with, you know, labor laws and reasonable minimum wages and such. "Cheap" here is relative.
The point Loren was making is that its not China's fault that the Canadian company who commissioned the toy's production were too fucking cheap to fund half-decent safety standards. They got what they paid for.
I totally agree with this. The amount of BS that piled upon China when its the NA companies not paying anything good is really at fault here. My Japanese Anime Figures are produced in China. Guess what? None of them are poisoness because the Japanese companies take precaution, at least in the figures I have.
Frankly this mostly sounds like scare mongering and anti-China retoric.
The Cat made the follow-up I would have made, but even this is simply not necessarily true. China is not inherently inferior in standards, it's simply more beholden to the desires of the company paying for the goods. You do get what you pay for, and if the company pays for incredibly high-quality product, China will make incredibly high-quality product, easily competitive with any socialist democracy.
I would say that's a microcosm of something that goes on every day. The laws and culture are almost always one step behind actual capabilities.
From what I've seen they haven't at all, or have done even worse, which annoys me on the "retentive, call yourself what you are" level.
The PRC is not communist, or leftist. In many ways, it's not even particularly socialist.
It's a rightist authoritarian state.
There was an interesting point in an Economist a while back on this issue, when the toxic dolls were first discovered. Because post-war Japan was keen to make a name for itself as a manufacturer, quality was really important to it. When a Japanese manufacturer accepted a contract from a western company to manufacture a good, it would make that good and that good alone, and concentrate on a) learning how to design and manufacture goods to high quality, and b) build up a name for itself.
Chinese manufacturers, on the other hand, as part of a global economy, can make more money accepting contracts from competing western companies, and churning out pretty much identical toys, T-shirts, etc. They make more money by being unassuming, undistinguished and unaffiliated "generic Chinese manufacturer A" than they could as an identifiable brand.
Yeah, its still around. Most developed countries still have really problematic sectors of industry, like piecework clothing manufacturing. Backyard-sweatshops, whey-hey.
How do you know that?
Have you tried licking them to see if they contain lead?
Not that it would work, the only way to find out is to test them yourself(with a labratory test of the materials).
Labor and the like too of course (and it's probably the most socially significant), but I had a wider view in mind that includes essentially every new advancement and technology.
China, for their part, let it happen while the western companies pressured them.
Ethically, all manufacturers should only use safe materials and pay its workers a reasonable wage, and that would be reflected in the price of the goods and services. Just because you weren't given a lot of money does not mean that you should provide dangerous product, at least not without full disclosure to the customer... customers have a right to know what they 're getting.
Lowballing the competition on the bid for making stuff influences corner cutting. It happens everywhere, yes, but Chinese firms are really good at it, and the government knows it happens, but acts outraged when caught.
For the record, China has a terribly interesting culture and is filled with beautiful people. I just wish they would use their position as a world top manufacturer to enforce some standards.
Presumably the same way infants found out their was lead in their rubber-duckies...
Handling them and then eating food would still contain enough lead to make you sick. Having me touch them, sleep in the same room as them and at least paint/remove paint to make it look better has given me at least some idea. At least thats what I think.
Not really, unless the paint is flaking off into your food. Which would be a totally separate quality-control issue. You would actually have to stick them in your mouth and suck on them regularly to see any significant effects.
Oh I see.
People with lead poisoning are not funny.
Even less so than people with a wicked GHB rush.
Tell that to the small children who are prone to sucking on their toys, fingers, fists (that one is always funny), bottle... you get the idea.