Children’s toy banned after poisonings
‘Australia’s 2007 Toy Of The Year, Bindeez, was being pulled from shelves after it was revealed the product’s “magic beads” contain a chemical that when swallowed converts into the toxic illegal drug fantasy.
Two NSW children have been hospitalised over the past 10 days suffering seizures after eating the beads, while a two-year-old boy from Toowoomba in southeastern Queensland was flown to a Brisbane hospital after swallowing Bindeez beads. [..]
Testing by scientists in NSW found the chemical link to the drug gamma-hydroxy butyrate (GHB) – also known as fantasy or Grievous Bodily Harm – which can also cause drowsiness, coma and can lead to death. [..]
Sydney-based poisons specialist Dr Naren Gunja said the list of Bindeez’s ingredients supplied by the manufacturer said it should contain the non-toxic chemical known as 1,5-pentanediol.
“What we’ve found in the beads from testing done … by our hospital scientists is that it contains 1,4-butanediol,” Dr Gunja said, adding this chemical was metabolised by the body into GHB.’
