As if the Chinese toy industry had not dug its own grave any deeper, the Consumer Product Safety Commission ordered another import recalled after determining that ingestion can cause chemicals to convert to GHB. That compound is commonly known as the date-rape drug, and both the US and Australia have scrambled to get Aqua-Dots and Bindeez out of the hands of children:
Millions of Chinese-made toys have been pulled from shelves in North America and Australia after scientists found they contain a chemical that converts into a powerful “date rape” drug when ingested. Two children in the U.S. and three in Australia were hospitalized after swallowing the beads.
With only seven weeks until Christmas, the recall is yet another blow to the toy industry — already bruised by a slew of recalls last summer.
In the United States, the toy goes by the name Aqua Dots, a highly popular holiday toy distributed by Toronto-based Spin Master Toys. It is called Bindeez in Australia, where it was named toy of the year at an industry function earlier this year.
Gamma hydroxy butate can cause unconsciousness, drowsiness, seizures, and death — and that’s in adults. GHB has been used by rapists to instill lethargy, unconsciousness, and amnesia in their victims, usually in a dating situation or at bars and nightclubs. Ingestion by children carries even more health dangers; the children involved in the US and Australia are lucky to have survived it.
Unfortunately, it will take luck to save children in other countries. The Chinese manufacturer will not issue a worldwide recall of the product despite the demonstrated dangers. Beijing and the manufacturer have decided that the individual countries have to decide whether to recall the products, even though they know the toys present a clear danger to the children who play with them.
Consumers in these countries, including ours, should take matters into their own hands. We should make clear that this Christmas, Santa Claus will not deliver any Chinese imports — period. Until they clean up their act and take responsibility for potentially poisoning millions of children, several times over now, consumers should take close looks at manufacturing labels for their gifts. If it says “Made in China”, we should skip over that product, and tell the stores why.
I’m certainly not going to buy any presents for the Little Admiral that comes from a country that refuses to act when their product converts to a poison when ingested. Once parents, grandparents, and families think about the implications, I’m certain that most will follow that same path.
Got a feeling that any toy marked “Made in China” is going to stay on the shelf this Christmas season.
Ain’t globalization wonderful? Anything to save a buck!
How come nobody is going after importer of this crap, the Spin Master Toys of Toronto? It is always “China” and the middle man (making tons of money) is somehow left out of it? Go get the bums, CEO and all!
How come nobody is going after importer of this crap, the Spin Master Toys of Toronto? It is always “China” and the middle man (making tons of money) is somehow left out of it? Go get the bums, CEO and all!
I’m not familiar with this “Aqua Dots” product. (not having children, I don’t much pay attention to the fads in toys and such.) Are these “dots” actually a candy or food product of some sort which is intended for ingestion? Or is it a toy with tiny “dots” that can be easily swallowed by small children?
Either way is bad, of course, but at least here in America I thought new products were supposed to be tested to make sure there were no small, detachable parts that kids could swallow to avoid a choking hazard, say nothing of poisoning.
If they were intended to be eaten, then somebody in China needs to be dealt with rather severely.
I hail the efforts of the Captain to shield his grandchildren from all of China’s “Dangerous Toys”. However, I was wondering if he will have any success in finding toys that are not manufactured there. I might be wrong, but I think this will be a difficult task at best.
China must know how much this could hurt their economy, and should take action to make sure their industries product safe and effective products. Other countries, such as the USA, should take the falling dollar and diminishing trade deficit, along with our ability to sell safe products and run with it. We can market ourselves to the world as the “Safe alternative”.
Jazz, they’re not candy. The BBC article says: (emphasis mine)
If past events are any guide, someone in China will be dealt with very severely indeed.
Jazz,
The “dots” are not intended to be swallowed. That said, they are small enough to swallow, even by a baby. I guess the theory was that the dots (beads) are small enough to pass through the system. The problem is with a coating put on the beads to make them stick together when sprayed with water. The beads are arranged into a flat design using a special plate, sprayed with water, and when they dry, the design is “permanent”. Some of us older people played with similar beads, but you had to bake them so they melted together to form the desired design. The allure of a product which doesn’t require kids to play with fire must have been pretty great; all the blogs mentioning Aqua Dots had parents raving about how neat the product was.
The Chinese have been blaming the whistleblowers [including the countries whose health officials find the problems] for some time now, claiming the publicity is designed to harm China. We have Chinese heritage, and we’ve stopped buying any of the traditional foodstuffs originating in China that used to grace our table [after learning that we probably got lead poisoning from canned fried dace]. The Chinese shot the leader of the bureau charged with safety for graft and bribery; it looks like they’ll have to shoot another for the lesson to stick.
Spin Master needs to look more carefully at its product line. This isn’t the first recall for them — they’ve had to recall a water-blaster rocket that could fly off in unpredictable directions and had hurt kids. Then an RC-controlled airplane (the “Air Hog”) whose powerpack could “overheat”. That said, spin master seems to have acted responsibly in assuring that its customers (the toy companies selling the items) are aware of the recalls and got the toys off the shelves; according to the news reports, Spin Master’s recalls have all been voluntary and with as few as three injuries — unlike some toy vendors, they haven’t waited for government action after hundreds of injuries.
As for the problem — it’s world wide. A kid in Israel is in the hospital after playing with Bindeez. Target had the dots on sale online yesterday evening, but they are down now. ToysRUs took them down yesterday afternoon.
Here’s a wild notion. Want to protect your kid from poisonous Chinese toys?
Buy them a book.
Am I just being a conspiracy theorist or is this China’s way of terrorizing us? Has anyone else thought of that? Short stuff’s missles fell into the big pond when he tried to hit us with those, so this is his backup plan.
My kids, all much older now, have always had a preference for German-made toys. I’d suggest the same for all. Far higher standards of production, far more attention paid to green-processes, and the 2004 German Equipment and Product Safety Act (GPSG) is lightyears ahead of the US and parsecs ahead of China. And some pretty awesome toys, too.
Second the preference for German toys. One wonders, how can they have such a near-monopoly on high quality (non-blinking, non-chirping) toys? But they do.
I noticed that Target has an aisle pointedly dedicated to less plastic, less annoying, somewhat higher quality toys. Still probably mostly PRC in origin, but shows that there’s a middle ground to be captured.
“Buy them a book”
Most of the books nowadays are also printed in China.
Ruffie Dots from China? Gawd, what’s a parent supposed to do anymore?
I’m buying the kids good old American-made jarts this year for Christmas.
By the way, did you know that in the “People’s Republic” of China, one-tenth of 1% of the people control 41.4% of the wealth.
I am the President of a doll company, Middleton Doll that has its product manufactured in China. We moved our manufacturing overseas several years ago as competitive pressures forced us to either move or price our products beyond a reasonable sales point. A story that is far to frequent where we have a society that screams about importers but won’t open their pocketbook to support domestic goods. All of our goods are manufactured by ISO certified companies with emphasis on safety and quality. We thoroughly test our goods by an independent certified testing company for lead content, barium, cadmium, and many other possible hazards to our valued consumers. We are conscientious about all aspects of our play products and have never been subject to any recall. The key is our design. We engineer our products to pass rigorous safety inspections and to use materials that will not pose risks to our consumers. It is not the Chinese government. It is our product and our responsibility. Don’t overreact and taint all goods stamped with the made in China label. Be informed consumers and conduct your research. Our company has made available our product safety protocols to all of our retailers and will continue to ensure that we provide the safest products for all of our customers.
Matt,
This is the way it should be done, if you put your own logo on the product (and recheck it often, since foreign manufacturers are known to “tweak” process if our requirements are too demanding).
That’s why I repeat: we should go after SPIN MASTERS OF TORONTO, CEOs, BMWs and all…
When our daughters were younger, we had a simple policy about toys that was informed by the concept that we were responsible for our childrens welfare. I do not understand how any parental policy so informed could have resulted in children ingesting the described parts of this toy.
I am no fan of Chinese consumer product safety practices. However, the risk here may be a bit hyped. For a bit of a different take:
http://www.debunkers.org/ubb/Forum11/HTML/000405.html
I was not even aware there were any domestic or non -China toy manufacturers.. Is it possible?
Just a little correction: GHB stands for Gamma hydroxybutyrate, not “Gamma hydroxy butate”
See:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/ghb.html
This is not a new story. Anyone remember the Menu Foods incident last March and April? Menu Foods manufactures much of the dry and wet pet food sold in the U.S., and according to reports I read shipped food that killed or injured 39,000 dogs and cats.
Menu Foods contracted the manufacture of protein powder (through another company, ChemNutra) to a Chinese company, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd. The company substituted a less expensive chemical (melamine) that caused the protein power to appear to have more protein.
I asked my fellow CJ board members (of Cat Junction, Inc, a small pet adoption agency in Georgia, now defunct) how long it would be before the same decision was made when it came to a powder or chemical meant for human consumption. Looks like this Aqua Dot incident is a huge step towards that!
Hasn’t anyone considered that the labels of the toys were clearly marked as appropriate for ‘Date Rapists’ only??
http://www.humblenarrator.com/2007/11/08/importers-tainted-chinese-kids-toys-clearly-labeled-for-date-rapists-aged-5/
I almost bought these for my 5 year old daughter the other day. We were in Walmart and she asked me for them. I told her that we’d put them on her list to send to Santa. Thank goodness!
Small, colorful beads that look like candy. Toxic coating aside, who in his right mind would give this thing to a small child?
We actually purchased these for my kids — last weekend, no less. I heard about the recall on the radio during my commute home last night, and the first thing I did once I got inside the house was to take it away from them.
The toy itself *is* clever, it is just unfortunate that (what is apparently) typical lackluster Chinese quality control led to several children in the U.S. and Australia becoming violently sick and hospitalized. Fortunately none have died.
I read yesterday that the manufacturer’s solution to this is to add a bitter-tasting chemical to the dots so kids are dissuaded from eating them. As if it were the dot’s sublime taste that led to this problem, and not the bright candy colors.
I’m now waiting for the story about Chinese toys that explode; surely this can’t be that far away.
Chinese toys that explode? Not yet in production for this Christmas, but I hear that the new Chinese “Dong Feng-41” may fit the bill.
Not to make light of the subject, but how many chinese men (or women) are date raping american children? No dates, no rapes. GHB is less illegal than marijuana, my cat was on special k after getting mauled by a yellow lab, and i know somebody who knows somebody that blames post-coital remorse on ruffies. But how many kids have been pressured into sex through the ingestion of aqua dots? China isn’t raping the children, but it does seem to be engaging in a systematic poisoning of things held most dear. Even lost a family dog to melamine late spring, but at least nobody was evoking the emotive of rape. And a certain chinese person got a bullet in the head over that.
Buy domestic, so the lawyers have a chance of a succesful lawsuit. And give buy your kids duplos, so the don’t get legos stuck in their nasal passages. At least then you could put on your best marcellus face and quote Last Action Hero. But leave the rape, murder, arson, and rape out of it.
I’m an aunt of 11 kids and am naturally concerned over recalled toys.I would like to see the producers and middlemen disciplined for lack of oversight.
But I’m beginning to think that China have become the “Sacco and Vanzetti” toy company – that we are more upset that these aren’t just bad toys, but bad toys from China, a nation that is now a strong global competitor for the same goods and trade we were once the dominant force. Would we have this discussion – and anger – if these things came from Denmark?
Rachel,
If Denmark had a history of exporting food products that contained toxins, or making baby cribs that fell apart and injured infants, or making toys, not just these tiny bead things, but other toys as well that proved harmful to our children, and did it over and over again, and was the leading producer of these same items, then, yes, as a parent, I’d be pretty ticked off at Denmark.
That Americans, in particular, are more concerned about price and not quality, makes this latest Chinese “mix up” even more intolerable. China knows that we demand cheap toys, shoes, and just about everything else, and they are milking the market, flooding it, actually, and from an official Chinese government standpoint, it is up to us, the consumer, to make sure their products are safe. Somehow they try to absolve themselves of blame, blaming the victim along the way.
China is no Denmark. Instead of going after the middleman, why not go after the producer of these tainted items?
Or, are we to once again be required to wait until another child gets ill, or another family member or pet dies, or some infant is mangled, before we politely ask the Chinese to maybe, if they can, if it is not too inconvenient, to perhaps pay just a wee bit more attention to the safety and quality of the products they produce for export?
Going after the producer in this case requires that we should grow a backbone and stop buying ANY Chinese product until it has been proven to be safe, until all Chinese products produced for export are safe. That could take years. The wait is worth it.
Despite the red flag and Soviet symbolism, China has an unregulated hyper-capitalist economy. Their safety standards are virtually non-existent. This is a common trait for developing economies, as it is a simple matter of priorities. China still acts like it can get away wih anything because it isn’t the US.
Safety regulations are there for a reason, and most of the time that reason has nothing to do with politics or government control.
AquaDots aside… China produces some pretty amazing products. I am an audiophile and regularly review new products from the US, Europe, and Asia. China produces the amazing high end audio equipment for the price. I’m talking about high end tubed and non tubed gear. Not the stuff you find in Wal-Mart or Circuit City.
This tells me two things. The Chinese are able to produce goods with high quality and excellent construction when they want to. The fact that they are able to produce $2,000 items which blow away US products at three times the cost suggests that they are able to do the same with non-consumer items, like military gear.
I’m less worried about dangerous kids toys than what I expect their military to have in a five to ten years. They will have lots of money to build them with the money they make from their consumer exports.
Not that I can defend the actions of China…
but the last time I checked, the middle men had quality control review each product before shipping it out…
Why don’t the American companies care enough to double check these things?
I have no expectations of China, but I would think Arizona had more control.