Chinese toys found to contain date-rape drug

Uh, I think the problem is well beyond ridiculous. This is nuts.

U.S. safety officials have voluntarily recalled about 4.2 million Chinese-made Aqua Dots toys contaminated with a powerful "date rape" drug that has caused some children to vomit and lose consciousness upon ingesting the contents.

Scientists have found the highly popular holiday toy contains a chemical that, once metabolized, converts into the toxic "date rape" drug GHB (gamma-hydroxy butyrate), U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) spokesman Scott Wolfson told CNN.

"Children who swallow the beads can become comatose, develop respiratory depression or have seizures," a CPSC statement warned.

"Anyone with Aqua Dots at home should throw them out," CPSC spokeswoman Julie Vallese said. The toy was named toy of the year in Australia and recently made Wal-Mart Store Inc's list of top 12 Christmas toys.

All we need now to make this even crazier is to listen to Republicans pontificate once again about letting industry self-regulate. Then they can tell us how "the market" will work out the problems. Just ignore those kids who are being rushed to the hospital and think of them as martyrs for industry and cheap toys from China. The worst of this is that the Democrats will probably just sit back and take punches like this, afraid to call out the GOP on their terribly failed policies.