When I was younger, the scariest thing about Halloween was Michael Myers and the creepy woman down the street who was straight out of Hansel and Gretel. Who knows what could have been in that candy?
Jump ahead a decade or so, and you still don’t know what’s in the candy. Children’s jewelry has toxic metal. Cribs can kill. Chinese infant formula sickened hundreds of thousands of kids. Childhood just doesn’t sound so great anymore.
Should I worry about metal in my candy corn the next time I go to the store? Should the manufacturer of that candy corn have to certify that the candy is safe? Metal detectors and random tests can find problems before they cause harm, but that’s not enough in some cases.
What about the peanut company executive that allegedly sold peanuts that had been on the floor? How about the Chinese dairy managers that messed with their products just to save a buck (or yuan)?
The peanut company exec is back in business and the Chinese managers were executed. Now, I’m not a fan of some of the things that China does, but if a company executive purposely did something that caused harm to my child, I’d be in favor of capital punishment. I hear firing squads are quite effective.
Alright, so maybe firing squads are a bit harsh, but they need to face some sort of consequences for their actions. I vote for hungry bears, a metal baseball bat, or death by paper cuts. At the very least, these executives should be forced to either eat or use their own products, especially if they are designed for children.
Yes, I know it isn’t always the CEO’s fault. A lot can happen over an extended supply chain.
In the global marketplace, it can be hard to maintain close supervision over a supplier that is thousands of miles away. Working with a contract manufacturer can be tricky if you can’t be there to make sure they follow the rules. If a supplier or contract manufacturer is the source of the problem, sever all ties -- regardless of how cheap it is to do business with them. Remember, Asian labor might be cheaper, but American lawsuits aren’t.
