I bought an optical mouse made by G.E. (General Electric) yesterday. After I opened it, there was a tag on the wire of the mouse that said the following:

WARNING: This product contains chemicals, including lead, known to the State of Califronis to cause birth defects or other reproduective harm. Wash hands after handling.

I am going to return the piece of junk the next time I go back to the store... but.... are all computer mice dangerous, or is it something only with optical mice... or is this just the G.E mice?

Anyone got any recommendations for a non-dangerous optical mouse?

I hope my current mouse doesn't make my balls fall off or anything. :-)

> I bought an optical mouse made by G.E. (General Electric) yesterday. After I
> opened it, there was a tag on the wire of the mouse that said the following:
>
> WARNING: This product contains chemicals, including lead, known to the State of
> Califronis to cause birth defects or other reproduective harm. Wash hands after
> handling.
>
> I am going to return the piece of junk the next time I go back to the store...
> but.... are all computer mice dangerous, or is it something only with optical
> mice... or is this just the G.E mice?

Nope. My Saitek P880 has (well, had) a similar label on it when I bought it. I guess it's got something to do with the chemicals used to produce the cable.

Or maybe it's California.

Either way, I don't know what they changed in the manufacture of these cables, so my guess is you've been handling these dangerous cables for most of your life (in mice, keyboards, joysticks, etc.), and can be expected to drop dead at any minute.

> Anyone got any recommendations for a non-dangerous optical mouse?

If you're really that paranoid about it, you can go cordless, which will minimize your contact with the cable, but short of that, such an animal doesn't exist AFAIK.

> I hope my current mouse doesn't make my balls fall off or anything. :-)
>

NT

> WARNING: This product contains chemicals, including lead, known to the State of
> Califronis to cause birth defects or other reproduective harm. Wash hands after
> handling.

You probably only get these warnings because of laws where you live designed to protect you, right?

But afaik I bought a logitech mouse and it's just plastic, where's the lead in a mouse exactly?

Wash your hands? That leads me to believe that something on the buttons or mouse casing you're likely to touch contains lead, no?

Edit - just read about the cables... why aren't warning labels more specific? This is retarded.

> But afaik I bought a logitech mouse and it's just plastic, where's the lead in a
> mouse exactly?

Sounds like theyre seriously covering their asses incase some retarded mother or something decides to consume their mouse and blames the lead in the solder for her baby being deformed or something stupid like that.

Blame the lawsuit culture I say. I seriously doubt any sane company would willingly produce a device that poisons you as you use it.



> I bought an optical mouse made by G.E. (General Electric) yesterday. After I
> opened it, there was a tag on the wire of the mouse that said the following:
>
> WARNING: This product contains chemicals, including lead, known to the State of
> Califronis to cause birth defects or other reproduective harm. Wash hands after
> handling.
>
> I am going to return the piece of junk the next time I go back to the store...
> but.... are all computer mice dangerous, or is it something only with optical
> mice... or is this just the G.E mice?
>
> Anyone got any recommendations for a non-dangerous optical mouse?
>
> I hope my current mouse doesn't make my balls fall off or anything. :-)
>


Pete

> Blame the lawsuit culture I say. I seriously doubt any sane company would
> willingly produce a device that poisons you as you use it.

Maybe you are right about the mouse lead, but hell, cigarettes poison people, and everybody know, so it is not as unlikely as you say. Why do you think there are so few scientific results about the healthiness of wireless devices and cellular phones? I don't want to go the tinfoil hat way, but don't think things are safe just because someone is selling them to you.

> > I bought an optical mouse made by G.E. (General Electric) yesterday. After I
> > opened it, there was a tag on the wire of the mouse that said the following:
> >
> > WARNING: This product contains chemicals, including lead, known to the State
> of
> > Califronis to cause birth defects or other reproduective harm. Wash hands
> after
> > handling.

> Or maybe it's California.

Yep. My Memorex keyboard (that I'm using) said something about that too. I've seen it on other recent computer equipment boxes too. My guess is that there was some lawsuit in California, and now they have to put that stupid (and scary) disclaimer on everything.

Btw, did you know that when you buy bread in a grocery store, that the paint that they use on the plastic wrapper, is lead-based? LOL. Don't turn them inside-out and use them for sandwich baggies, that's all I'm saying. But that's an example of how common lead exposure is.

I wouldn't worry about it, but I wouldn't lick, chew, or eat, any of your computer components or cords or bread baggy wrappers any time soon either.