Al Gore called... he said the chemical fumes in the xB are killing polar bears. He's ____ed too, because his son read this and rushed out to buy one.

 

Looks I'm gonna have to sell my xB because the plastics are harmful. SIKE!!!! HealthCar? WTF? Umm okay. When I see the CDC saying that the xB's plastic will kill me, I'll believe it.

 

I manage public relations for a VERY large Fortune 500 consumer products company, and I can tell you we would never respond to a report like that cited at the top of this conversation. As noted above, that would just add credence to it. Now, if a lot (a LOT) of consumers started chatting about it and calling the company, we may put together a question-and-answer sheet just in case the legitimate press inquired of us...but even then, we'd never proactively respond, just answer questions.

Whenever I do see a report of this nature about one of our products, the first thing I do is contact our R&D guys to see if there is ANY grain of truth/possibility in the report. The answer is always 'no'; big companies test the wazoo out of products before they ever get to consumers. That's not to say mistakes aren't made from time to time -- they are -- but those issues are exceedingly rare and reputable companies correct them quickly.