First Lead Posioning, Now Comas?!

What has gotten into the toy market this year? First there are all those recalls for lead paint and now the Aqua Dots recall for GHB. This type of leak into the market is totally, absolutely unacceptable. What seems to be the funny part is that Wal-Mart had even selected it to be one of the top toys for the holiday season, and now it is being pulled from the shelves.

An advertisement for Aqua Dots (for those of you who haven't seem them) read:
Aqua Dots Super Studio is the super cool way to have fun! Wow your friends with unique designs using Aqua Dots beads. You be the artist! Arrange Aqua Dots in any pattern or design you want, spray with water and play! The secret is water magically makes the colorful dots stick together to create an awesome design! Simply make, spray and stay for hours of fun every day! They´re magic! No Heat, No glue, No Mess!



It does actually sound neat and fun, similar to those plastic beads that kids used to iron and melt together into different shapes and designs. But how on Earth did the manufactures manage to contaminate them with a compound that metabolizes into GHB?!

Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid is used illegally under street names like Juice, Liquid Ecstasy, and as a date rape drug. Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN was quoted in their article, "In higher doses, it can cause people to go into a coma. It can cause seizures. It can cause something known as hypotonia, where all your muscles just become very flaccid. And it can cause people to become amnestic, ... which is why it became a date-rape drug". If you have Aqua Dots throw them out immediately. I think it is fair to say that we all hope that sometime soon we can regain trust in our toy manufactures, until then go ahead and be skeptical and keep your eyes and ears open for anything that may seem suspect.