Children’s Art Toy Beados Slammed For Maker’s Previous Link To Date Rape Drug

Beados Recall Scandal
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Let’s just file this under “What Not To Buy Your Kids For Christmas.” Though kids’ craft toy Beados, also known as Bindeez, maybe a favorite among children, an angry parent slammed the company after doing her research and finding that a previous iteration of the product known as Aqua Dots was coated with a product that turns into Gamma Hydroxybutyrate — also known as GHB, a well-known date rape drug.

Beados are a popular pastime for kids five and over that have been around for over a decade. The tiny beads are used to craft visuals, though in 2007 the company was wrapped up in a scandal. New parents who didn’t have to be on high-alert for toy recalls back in the day were shocked to find that the toy their kids have been playing with have a pretty disturbing past that may include the company knowingly including a toxic product in their toys to save money before a publicized recall.

In a Reddit thread posted to the parenting subreddit titled “F**k Beados,” a mom described how her kid stuck one of the little beads up their nose and found themselves in some persisting pain. After doing the research, she found that Beadoz is linked to Aqua Dots (in fact, Beados, Bindeez, and Aqua Dots are marketed interchangeably) and the toy was recalled in 2007 after 10-year-old swallowed a large amount of the beads. It’s unclear how the mixup happened, but what was supposed to be a non-toxic coating was swapped out with the much cheaper 1,4-butanediol which becomes GHB. Some affected children were found to have had side-effects similar to seizures after ingesting too many, though the distributor did claim that there were no long-term effects reported. The supplier also officially changed the name from Bindeez to Beados in order to publicly distance themselves from the scandal and changed the product formerly known as ‘Aquadots’ to ‘Pixos’ moving forward. The new product allegedly has a bitter coat on it now to discourage children from eating them, though they are apparently safe to eat in “small” numbers. The same year of the recall, Bindeez was Australian’s “Toy Of The Year.”

F**k Beados from r/Parenting

Another parent did clarify that, according to their research, the new ones don’t have a bitter coating on them but “are safe.”

It does seem that the current products out there under the Beados brand are totally safe, but it just goes to show that parents have to be extra cautious about what toys their kids have access too — even ones that are targeted at children.

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