Aquadon'ts
By: Matthew
By: Matthew
Once more, we have a toy recall stemming from a toxic product produced in China. For those who are not familiar with the product known in North America as Aquadots (Bindeez in Australia), they are a toy manufactured by Australian company Moose Enterprises P/L and distributed in North America by Spin Master Ltd. Aquadots consist of numerous beads that can be arranged in numerous designs using craft kits. Once the beads are sprayed with water, they stick together thanks to adhesive chemicals in the beads, forming permanent (or semi-permanent) designs that can be removed from the kit's tray. The toy was presumably intended for children of a certain age level as is often the case with any arts & crafts toy; besides, any toy containing small beads could amount to a choking hazard for children ages 3 and under. All you have to do is read the packaging on any toy with small parts to know that.
The reported problem with Aquadots stems from products shipped out of Shenzhen, China by the Wangqi Product Factory. As is so often the case these days, Moose Enterprises had apparently arranged for their product to be produced by the Wangqi Product Factory as a cost-saving measure. Someone at the Wangqi facility decided to save even more money on their end by using a different, cheaper chemical when producing Aquadots than called for by Moose Enterprise's formula. Namely, they replaced 1,5-pentanediol, a relatively benign chemical, with 1,4-butanediol, a cheaper chemical that metabolizes into gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (aka GHB, a popular date-rape drug) when ingested by humans. Understandably, neither Moose Enterprises nor Spin Master wanted tainted products on the market, so both Bindeez and Aquadots have seen recalls in Australia and the United States until proper replacement beads can be shipped. Reportedly replacements in Australia will be coated with a bitter substance known as Bitrex to prevent children from ingesting them in the future, and one would hope that the same substance will be used in products shipped to the United States.
It is certainly understandable that Moose Enterprises would be upset with their partners at the Wangqi Product Factory given how much trouble was caused by deviation from Moose Enterprise's intended product formulation. That alone was reason enough for a product recall; the fact that at least five children (three in Australia, two in the US) have suffered serious side-effects from swallowing tainted Bindeez/Aquadots prior to the recall only added fuel to the fire. What would seem to be just another case of a bum toy from China, however, may be a slightly more complicated matter. Nobody seems to want to talk about the fact that toys with small parts, like Aquadots, have long carried warnings against exposing the toy to children who are at a serious risk of ingesting small parts (at least in the US anyway). It's a sensible enough warning since small children are prone to choking themselves by swallowing or inhaling bits and pieces of toys that they can not easily dislodge from their own throats. One would assume that Aquadots carried the same warning even before the recall. Most of the reported victims of tainted Bindeez/Aquadots seem to have been under the age of 3 as well (a notable exception being a 10-year-old girl in Australia that swallowed some beads). Not to make any excuses for Moose Enterprises, but most of those children were already significantly endangered by gaining access to Bindeez/Aquadots regardless of their contamination with 1,4-butanediol. The inclusion of Bitrex in future revisions of the toy should address most concerns that people might have over unintended consumption by small children.
The point to this exercise is to realize that the most serious threat posed by Aquadots to small children was their small size. Our media's tendency to blow things out of proportion and/or focus on sensationalism prevented most commentators from realizing this fact, much less making mention of it in the news. You may as well complain about children getting tetanus from playing with tainted, rusted nails (why were they playing with nails in the first place?). Nobody wants a poisonous product being sold to children, and the recall was appropriate for that reason alone, but the resulting scaremongering in American news outlets was worded in such a fashion that one could conclude, at least from headlines alone, that Aquadots actually contained a date-rape drug (they didn't) or that someone would feed your children Aquadots in an attempt to rape them. Most of the reporting was eventually accurate or semi-accurate, even if the headlines were a bit off, and still nobody seemed to want to notice that the two cases of Aquadots-related sickness in the US involved the consumption of a toy that was a significant choking hazard. Toy-related injuries (such as small children choking on toys intended for older children) will cause more harm and claim more lives every year than Aquadots ever has or ever could thanks to 1,4-butanediol. No matter how tainted or ugly the defective products from China become, we must remain focused on essential product safety, particularly when it comes to toys.
The reported problem with Aquadots stems from products shipped out of Shenzhen, China by the Wangqi Product Factory. As is so often the case these days, Moose Enterprises had apparently arranged for their product to be produced by the Wangqi Product Factory as a cost-saving measure. Someone at the Wangqi facility decided to save even more money on their end by using a different, cheaper chemical when producing Aquadots than called for by Moose Enterprise's formula. Namely, they replaced 1,5-pentanediol, a relatively benign chemical, with 1,4-butanediol, a cheaper chemical that metabolizes into gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (aka GHB, a popular date-rape drug) when ingested by humans. Understandably, neither Moose Enterprises nor Spin Master wanted tainted products on the market, so both Bindeez and Aquadots have seen recalls in Australia and the United States until proper replacement beads can be shipped. Reportedly replacements in Australia will be coated with a bitter substance known as Bitrex to prevent children from ingesting them in the future, and one would hope that the same substance will be used in products shipped to the United States.
It is certainly understandable that Moose Enterprises would be upset with their partners at the Wangqi Product Factory given how much trouble was caused by deviation from Moose Enterprise's intended product formulation. That alone was reason enough for a product recall; the fact that at least five children (three in Australia, two in the US) have suffered serious side-effects from swallowing tainted Bindeez/Aquadots prior to the recall only added fuel to the fire. What would seem to be just another case of a bum toy from China, however, may be a slightly more complicated matter. Nobody seems to want to talk about the fact that toys with small parts, like Aquadots, have long carried warnings against exposing the toy to children who are at a serious risk of ingesting small parts (at least in the US anyway). It's a sensible enough warning since small children are prone to choking themselves by swallowing or inhaling bits and pieces of toys that they can not easily dislodge from their own throats. One would assume that Aquadots carried the same warning even before the recall. Most of the reported victims of tainted Bindeez/Aquadots seem to have been under the age of 3 as well (a notable exception being a 10-year-old girl in Australia that swallowed some beads). Not to make any excuses for Moose Enterprises, but most of those children were already significantly endangered by gaining access to Bindeez/Aquadots regardless of their contamination with 1,4-butanediol. The inclusion of Bitrex in future revisions of the toy should address most concerns that people might have over unintended consumption by small children.
The point to this exercise is to realize that the most serious threat posed by Aquadots to small children was their small size. Our media's tendency to blow things out of proportion and/or focus on sensationalism prevented most commentators from realizing this fact, much less making mention of it in the news. You may as well complain about children getting tetanus from playing with tainted, rusted nails (why were they playing with nails in the first place?). Nobody wants a poisonous product being sold to children, and the recall was appropriate for that reason alone, but the resulting scaremongering in American news outlets was worded in such a fashion that one could conclude, at least from headlines alone, that Aquadots actually contained a date-rape drug (they didn't) or that someone would feed your children Aquadots in an attempt to rape them. Most of the reporting was eventually accurate or semi-accurate, even if the headlines were a bit off, and still nobody seemed to want to notice that the two cases of Aquadots-related sickness in the US involved the consumption of a toy that was a significant choking hazard. Toy-related injuries (such as small children choking on toys intended for older children) will cause more harm and claim more lives every year than Aquadots ever has or ever could thanks to 1,4-butanediol. No matter how tainted or ugly the defective products from China become, we must remain focused on essential product safety, particularly when it comes to toys.
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