Dangerous Sealer Stayed on Shelves After Recall

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

Walter E. Friedel’s plans to waterproof the tile floors of his hot tub room using Stand ’n Seal, a do-it-yourself product sold at his local Home Depot, promised to be a quick weekend project, one he could wrap up in time to catch the Giants football game on a Sunday afternoon.

The product offered “a revolutionary fast way” to seal grout around tiles and, its label boasted, any extra spray would “evaporate harmlessly.”

“It sounds like no big deal,” Dr. Friedel said, looking back.

But instead of watching football that afternoon, Dr. Friedel, a 63-year-old physician, ended up being rushed to the hospital, where he would spend four days in intensive care, gasping for air, his lungs chemically inflamed.

Dr. Friedel was the latest victim of a product whose dangers had become known months earlier to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the companies that made and sold it. Before Dr. Friedel bought Stand ’n Seal, at least 80 people had been sickened using it, two of them fatally.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/washington/08consumer.html?hp

[Froward69]

1. Profit before safety. that’s the GOP way.

[orleans]

2. it's fuckhead's & the republik's "capitalist" society they love so much

hey--if the market didn't demand this type of crap then no one would be buying it and the company wouldn't make it.
plain and simple.


(and you gotta know i'm being very sarcastic)

[KT2000]

3. the libertarian's

should take note. This is the sort of thing they want to leave to the marketplace to determine whether it is a good product or not. People just won't buy it if it destroy the lungs!

[WileEcoyote]

4. I think my sister used that product

I'm in the tile business and don't like to use sealers of any variety anyway.

My bet is that had someone struck a match while he sprayed that shit the place would have hone up like napalm. But i could be wrong.

[Quakerfriend]

5. OMG! I just bought and used this product last month!!

It worked so well in the new bathroom that I was just about to use it again in our kitchen! Thank you so much for posting this.

And, yes I got it from Home Depot.

[corkhead]

6. My wife was strongly encouraging me to use this on a recently completed tile project

:tinfoilhat:

[TheMadMonk]

7. Some different "snips" might have been useful.

Just from the OP it would be very easy to reach the conclusion that the problem was with the retailers, but you were blaming the manufacturer anyway.

That said, what's the bet the liability insurers will try to weasel out on the grounds that the manufacturer acted with reckless indifference.

Any person found liable in this incident (or anything like it) should be absolutely forbidden from working in any supervisory role whatsoever for an absolute minimum of five years (I like ten to life) after serving any jail term. And make it an offense to knowingly employ such a person in a supervisory roll.

All wishful thinking of course. There's always another consumer, campaign donor's are harder to come by and spanking one too hard is sure to make the other's nervous.

[RamboLiberal]

8. The OP said CPSC, manufacturers and retailers knew

It's tough to snip a few paragraphs you know. A little picky IMHO.