China confirms toys contained date-rape drug

There was yet another toy recall last week. Now, a Chinese safety watchdog confirms the problem.

As a parent, this makes me totally paranoid about toy shopping. And Christmas is coming up. My son is making lists already. I'm glancing at it, wondering what wooden toy equivalent would be suitable. Of course, then you have to worry about toxic paint!

Are you going to shop differently this holiday season? Let me know.


BEIJING - China's safety watchdog confirmed Saturday that toy beads recalled in the United States and Australia after sickening children contain a substance that can turn into the "date-rape" drug after ingested.


The toys, coated with the industrial chemical 1,4-butanediol, were made by the Wangqi Product Factory in Shenzhen, a city just over the border from Hong Kong, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine said in a statement.

When ingested, the chemical metabolizes into the "date-rape" drug gamma hydroxy butyrate, also known as GHB, which can cause breathing problems, loss of consciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death.

Millions of units of the popular toys, which are sold as Aqua Dots in the United States and as Bindeez in Australia, were recalled in those countries as well as Britain, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere this past week after children began falling sick from swallowing the toy's bead-like parts.

In the latest case, the Aqua Dots or Bindeez were supposed to have been coated with nontoxic 1,5-pentanediol, a chemical commonly used in computer printer ink. But that chemical generally sells for three or four times the price of the toxic compound found on the tainted toys, 1,4-butanediol.