Bella Mancillas is standing on her head.

For an 8-year-old to be exuberantly goofing off, performing cartwheels and splits while grownups are talking, is nothing out of the ordinary. But as her mother, Katie Mancillas, is explaining, in Bella’s case, it’s almost miraculous.

Six years ago, when Bella was 2, she was rushed to the hospital because she was vomiting so uncontrollably that she inhaled fluid into her lungs, blocking her airways. Not long after she arrived, Bella stopped breathing and briefly flatlined. “Oh, my God, I think Bella’s gonna die,” Katie remembers telling her sister.

The cause of Bella’s near-death experience wasn’t a nasty stomach virus or a toxic pesticide. According to Katie, it was a squishy, multicolored packet that’s an increasingly common presence in American homes: a Tide Pod.

Katie Mancillas often did the laundry for her large family in the suburbs of San Diego, lugging loads to the nearby laundromat. When she first saw the pods—easily portable packets of concentrated detergent, then new to the market—she thought they’d be a useful convenience.

On Nov. 17, 2012, Katie brought home her first case of Tide Pods, from Costco, and placed them on the kitchen counter. Katie recalls that the case was clear plastic, with a button on top that opened the lid when pushed. She was unloading her groceries, she says, when she turned around to see that Bella had opened the case and was about to put a pod in her mouth. She bit into it before Katie could snatch it away. “It literally did look like candy. And I honestly think that that’s what she thought it was,” says Katie.

Katie immediately called poison control and was told to force Bella to drink 32 ounces of water and wait 30 minutes to see if she started vomiting bubbles. “At 27 minutes, she started projectile vomiting,” Katie recalls. “It was just bubbles, like from a bubble machine.”

贝拉·曼西利亚斯正在玩倒立。

对8岁的孩子来说，在大人说话的时候尽情玩闹，比如玩侧手翻和劈叉一点也不稀奇。但贝拉的妈妈凯蒂·曼西拉斯解释说，现在贝拉能这样玩几乎是奇迹。

六年前，贝拉刚两岁时曾被送进医院，呕吐失控把液体吸入肺部，阻塞了呼吸道。贝拉到医院不久就停止了呼吸，脑电图也有一会成了直线。“哦，天哪，贝拉快死了。”凯蒂记得曾对姐姐说。

贝拉在生死边缘挣扎不是因为胃部病毒，也不是因为喝了农药。凯蒂说，罪魁祸首是一个黏糊糊的彩色小包，在美国家庭中越来越常见的汰渍洗衣凝珠。

凯蒂·曼西利亚斯经常为住在圣迭戈郊区的大家庭洗衣服，每次都得拖一大堆东西去附近的洗衣店。她第一次看到洗衣凝珠就觉得很方便，当时凝珠刚上市，里面是浓缩洗衣液，而且很容易携带。

2012年11月17日，凯蒂从好市多买回第一盒汰渍凝珠，顺手放在厨房台子上。凯蒂记得盒子是透明塑料的，上面有个按钮，按下就可以打开盖子。当时她正在忙着整理买回的东西，转过身就看到贝拉打开盒子拿起一个凝珠往嘴里塞。等到凯蒂抢走，贝拉已经咬了一口。“从表面看确实像糖果。我觉得贝拉就是当成糖果吃的。”凯蒂说。

凯蒂赶紧打电话给毒物控制中心，对方告诉她要灌贝拉喝32盎司的水，然后等30分钟，看看会不会呕吐气泡。“27分钟后，她开始呕吐。”凯蒂回忆道。“就像泡泡机里冒的泡泡一样。”

They raced to the hospital. When they arrived, Katie saw Bella turn blue as medical staff struggled to steer a breathing tube through the bubbles in her throat. After Bella was intubated, they transferred her to a children’s hospital, where she was placed into a medically induced coma so that they could try to suction the detergent out of her lungs.

As Katie retells the story, Bella ends her impromptu gymnastics routine and nestles into her mother’s side on the couch. Her otherwise bright demeanor—illustrated by the glitter that covers her T-shirt, backpack, and notebook—turns somber.

After two weeks of Katie not knowing whether her daughter would pull through, Bella started breathing on her own again. But she had serious challenges ahead. She had to relearn how to walk and talk. She got sick often after the episode, which her doctor surmised was because of the lung injuries she had sustained. The most serious effects have been on her eyes. Bella has a type of strabismus in which the eyes are misaligned vertically; her doctors attribute it to oxygen deprivation during the incident. She has struggled to read and write properly, and she’s had two eye surgeries, with a possible third to come.

“It’s hard,” says Bella, who in this moment sounds more like a jaded adult than a carefree kid. “But you just kind of have to fight through it.”

他们赶紧去医院。到医院时凯蒂看到贝拉的脸已经憋蓝了，医护人员用一根呼吸管穿过她喉咙里的气泡，立刻转移到儿童医院进入昏迷，然后从肺部吸出清洁剂。

凯蒂讲话时，一旁的贝拉也停止了即兴体操，缩进妈妈一侧的沙发里。在T恤、背包和笔记本上的闪光衬托下，神采奕奕的小姑娘立刻阴沉下来。

两周时间贝拉生死未卜，凯蒂在医院里日夜焦灼。终于贝拉有了自主呼吸，但面临着严峻的挑战，要重新学习走路和说话。从此以后她经常生病，医生推测是由肺损伤导致。最严重的是眼睛。贝拉患上一种斜视，眼睛垂直错位。医生认为原因是中毒期间缺氧。她一直在努力学习读写，做了两次眼科手术，可能还要做第三次。

“过得很艰难。”贝拉说，这一刻她很像个疲惫的成年人，而不是无忧无虑的孩子。“但得努力克服。”

Tide Pods are arguably one of the most successful innovations in the storied, 181-year history of ¬consumer goods leviathan Procter & Gamble. They’re also the top-selling brand in a household-product category that became ubiquitous practically overnight. Eight years ago, liquid-detergent packets were barely a presence in U.S. stores; by 2018 they accounted for nearly one-fifth of the laundry detergent market and $1.5 billion in sales. And P&G, the maker of Tide Pods and another popular brand, Gain Flings, controls 79% of that business.

But the design factors that have made laundry pods so successful—their compactness, easy accessibility, and aesthetically pleasing look—are also potentially fatal flaws. Too often, it appears, young children and seniors with dementia mistake them for candy and try to eat them. And when that happens, they’re more likely than other detergents and other household cleaning products to cause serious injury.

Laundry pods’ threat to public safety became apparent immediately after their North America launch in 2012. Between 2011 and 2013, the number of annual emergency-department visits for all laundry detergent-related injuries for young children more than tripled, from 2,862 to 9,004.

The majority of injuries resolve within 24 hours without long-lasting effects. Still, pods make up 80% of all major injuries related to laundry detergent, according to the American Association for Poison Control Centers (AAPCC), despite accounting for only 16% of the market. In rare cases like Bella’s, long-term complications can ensue. And nine people have died in the U.S.—two children younger than age 2 and seven seniors with dementia—in cases definitively linked to laundry pods.

To the extent that most consumers are aware of these dangers, it’s thanks to an asinine Internet trend. In late 2017 a handful of teenagers started posting videos online of themselves eating laundry packets in a surreal viral phenomenon known as the Tide Pod Challenge. That cultural episode cast laundry-pod poisoning as a self-inflicted wound, harming only the irresponsible. But the Challenge has accounted for only a tiny fraction of the injuries caused by this now pervasive product.

P&G and other detergent makers, startled by soaring numbers and prodded by regulators, have taken the product back to the drawing board more than once. But despite multiple changes to the pods’ design and exterior packaging, intensive industrywide meetings on the issue, and seven years of brainstorming and testing, the situation has not substantially improved when measured by the total number of calls to poison-control centers and emergency-department visits.

Pods have prompted an average of 11,568 poison-control calls a year involving young children since 2013, their first full year on the U.S. market. (The majority of calls, or exposures, involving pods are not associated with serious injuries, but they’re the best ¬population-wide data available to measure pods’ impact on public health.)

And when injuries are inflicted, they remain disproportionately severe: In 2017, the most recent year for which figures are available, 35% of pod exposure cases among the whole population wound up being treated in health care facilities; for all other laundry detergents and for household cleaning substances, that figure was 16% when pods were excluded.

在著名消费品巨头宝洁的181年历史上，汰渍洗衣凝珠堪称最成功的创新之一。洗衣凝珠几乎一夜之间爆红，变成家用产品里最畅销的品牌。八年前，美国商店里还几乎没有小包装的液体洗衣液；2018年已经占领近五分之一洗衣用品市场，销售额达15亿美元。另外，宝洁旗下的汰渍凝珠和另一个流行品牌Gain Flings占据了79%的市场份额。

但推动洗衣凝珠成功的设计因素，非常紧凑、拿取方便，以及非常漂亮的外观也有潜在的致命缺陷。目前来看，幼儿和老年痴呆症患者常常误认为是糖果，有可能吃下去。一旦出现这种情况，洗衣凝珠造成的后果比其他清洁剂和家用清洁产品更严重。

2012年洗衣凝珠在北美上市后，对公共安全的威胁立即出现。2011年至2013年期间，每年急诊科里儿童因洗衣液受伤就诊次数增加了两倍多，从2862次增至9004次。

大多数损伤可以在24小时内消除，无长期影响。但美国毒物控制中心协会（AAPCC）的数据显示，洗衣凝珠虽然市场份额仅占16%，却占与洗衣用品相关严重伤害的80%。遇上贝拉一样的严重案例，可能出现长期并发症。美国与洗衣凝珠直接相关的死亡案例已达9起，其中包括两名2岁以下儿童和七名老年痴呆症患者。

至于已知危险的消费者中毒案例，大多要怪愚蠢的互联网挑战。2017年年底，一些青少年开始在网上发布吃洗衣凝珠的视频，后来发展成离奇的病毒传播现象，叫做“汰渍凝珠挑战”。该事件中洗衣凝珠中毒属于自我伤害，只影响到不负责任的人。不过凝珠挑战导致的中毒案例只占总数的一小部分。

面临激增的中毒数字，还有来自于监管机构的压力，宝洁和其他凝珠制造商都吓了一跳，于是重新讨论产品的设计。尽管凝珠的设计和外部包装多次变化，围绕安全问题密集召开了行业会议，也经过了七年头脑风暴和测试，但从毒物控制中心收到的呼叫数和急诊室病例来看，情况并没有实质性改善。

2013年以来，每年因洗衣凝珠打电话给毒物中心求助的电话里有平均有11568次涉及幼儿，2013年是这种产品在美国市场上市的第一个整年。（大多数涉及洗衣凝珠的电话求助或中毒案例并未造成严重伤害，不过可以借此估算受影响的人群，判断洗衣凝珠对公共卫生的影响。）

造成伤害时，严重程度也各不相同。有数据记录的最近一年2017年里，35%的凝珠伤害病例最终去医院接受治疗。如果排除凝珠，洗衣剂和家庭清洁剂导致前往医院就医的比例为16%。

Consumer advocates and public health experts argue that, for all its well-intentioned efforts, the industry has refused to confront the brightly colored elephant in the room: the swirly, multi-hue design schemes that make the mini-packets look so much like candy. If manufacturers can bring themselves to make all pods look neutral and less inviting, says Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, “we can design this problem out of existence.”

P&G and other detergent makers point to different injury measures, arguing that they’ve brought down the market-adjusted rate of exposures even without such changes, by improving the childproofing of packaging and educating the public on proper safety habits. “Our job is to prevent children from having access to the product completely,” says Damon Jones, P&G’s vice president for global communications and advocacy.

While they haven’t ruled out future changes, industry and regulators have announced no plans for a more aggressive safety intervention. But in an era in which many consumer-facing businesses have tremendous leeway to regulate themselves, the Tide Pod dilemma raises urgent and disturbing questions. Has P&G truly reached the limit as to how safe it can make its popular product? With no legal requirements to make pods safer, do ethics require the industry to go further? Can an “improved” product that still causes thousands of hospital visits a year be considered safe? And at what point does the manufacturer’s responsibility for accidents end and the consumer’s begin?

That these questions need to be asked testifies to a fundamental truth of America’s consumer product ecosystem: It’s largely up to companies to determine how to respond to a consumer hazard. While government agencies occasionally step in, safety decisions usually come down to business leaders balancing the success of a product against reputational and legal concerns. At least for now, P&G has made its determination: The Tide Pod is safe.

消费者权益倡导者和公共卫生专家认为，尽管行业做了很多善意努力，还是拒绝直面房间里的大象（意思是一些非常显而易见，却一直被忽略的问题——译者注），这次还是颜色鲜艳的彩色大象，洗衣液的小包装上有多彩漩涡装饰，看起来太像糖果。美国儿童医院伤害研究和政策中心主任加里·史密斯表示，如果制造商能把洗衣凝珠设计得更中性，没那么诱人，“就可以通过设计解决问题。”

宝洁和其他洗衣用品生产商指出，目前已经应用各种防止伤害措施，而且认为即便不采取相关措施也降低了伤害几率，因为已经改善包装降低儿童误食几率，也在不断教育公众培养正确的使用习惯。 “我们的工作是完全防止儿童接触到产品。” 宝洁负责全球传播和推广的副总裁达蒙·琼斯表示。

虽然并未排除进一步改进的可能，但行业和监管机构已经宣布暂无计划更积极地介入安全预防。但在当今时代，许多面向消费者的企业都有空间实施自我管理，汰渍洗衣凝珠引发的困境提出了紧急且令人不安的问题。宝洁到底有没有尽全力确保畅销产品的安全？由于没有法律规定限制洗衣凝珠的安全性，能否根据伦理要求行业进一步自律？如果一款“已改进”的产品每年仍会导致数千次入院医治，能不能算安全？制造商对事故的责任到哪个点终止，又从哪一点开始应该由消费者负责任？

种种问题证明了美国消费品生态系统里一个基本事实：如何应对消费者风险在很大程度上取决于企业。虽然政府机构偶尔会介入，但安全决策通常由企业领导者制定，企业往往会在产品成功与声誉和法律问题之间寻求平衡。至少目前宝洁已经下了判断，汰渍洗衣凝珠安全没问题。

Consumer conglomerates like Procter & Gamble face a daunting challenge: They sell huge portfolios of famous brand names—in an era when many shoppers are happy to buy no-name brands to save a few bucks. By the early 2010s, that problem was becoming a drag on growth at P&G. And former employees say that Tide, a brand that dates back to 1946, was a case in point—no longer luring customers in its commoditized category. Laundry pods offered P&G a chance to restore Tide’s competitive edge.

Fortune spoke with nine former P&G employees about the Tide Pod’s development, and their accounts tell a consistent story about the process. (P&G declined multiple requests to make current executives available for interviews. Fortune spoke with the senior manager responsible for overseeing its pod safety efforts and conducted multiple conversations with the corporate communications team.) The idea of selling liquid cleaning agents in pre-measured packets wasn’t new: In 2001, P&G and Unilever started selling laundry pods in Europe that were larger than today’s versions. Former employees say that given the moderate success of these packets, as well as its dishwasher detergent tablets, P&G was confident that its more advanced Tide Pods would catch on in North America. Beginning in 2004, P&G embarked on a development process that it hoped would turn the product into a hit. Over the next eight years, the company would later boast, P&G dedicated 75 staff members to the Tide Pod project, involved some 6,000 consumers in market research, and generated more than 450 packaging and product sketches.

As the final shape emerged, the development team was thrilled with the results. Tide Pods were fun to hold—squishy, yet firm. Their colors—Tide’s signature blue and orange, in swirl-shaped chambers atop a white backdrop—stood out far more than the single-colored packets on the market at that point. And the pods came packaged in a clear tub, designed to show off the attractive design inside.

“We knew we had a breakthrough product on our hands,” says Tom Fischer, a former P&G executive for fabric and home care sales, the division responsible for Tide Pods.

The pods’ launch, in February 2012, proved them right. Shoppers seemed to love the convenience and the colorful form factor, and sales soared. In P&G’s 2012 annual report, released just a few months after they hit the market, then-CEO Bob McDonald proudly described Tide Pods as an example of “innovation that obsoletes existing products.” Between 2013 (liquid laundry packets’ first full year on the U.S. market) and 2018, pod sales grew 136%, according to Euromonitor International, a market research provider. During that period, the overall laundry detergent category grew just 7%. Today, pods make up close to a quarter of P&G’s overall laundry detergent sales.

A TV commercial that accompanied the Tide Pod launch in 2012 conveys the euphoria. In the ad, a woman draws a pod out of an open case and tosses it into the drum of a washing machine. In the background are sounds of bubbles popping and the upbeat Men Without Hats song “Pop Goes the World.” The spot ends with the tagline: “Pop in. Stand out.” But nowadays, popping is not an image P&G wants anyone to associate with Tide Pods.

宝洁之类的消费品集团面临着严峻挑战：现在的很多消费者为了省几美元会选择没名气品牌的产品，而宝洁旗下却有大量知名产品。在2010年左右，该问题已经拖累了宝洁的增长。前员工表示，早在1946年就创立的汰渍品牌就是明显例子，在洗衣用品领域已经吸引不了顾客。洗衣凝珠给了宝洁重建汰渍竞争优势的机会。

《财富》杂志采访了宝洁公司的9位前员工，谈了谈汰渍洗衣凝珠的发展情况，各人回忆的历程基本一致。（宝洁多次拒绝采访现任高管的请求。《财富》杂志曾与负责监督凝珠安全工作的高级经理交谈，也与公关团队谈了多次。）按照固定容量包装洗衣液并销售的想法并不新鲜。2001年，宝洁和联合利华就开始在欧洲销售洗衣凝珠，比现在的版本大一些。前员工表示，先前的版本取得了一定成功，洗碗机清洁啫喱球的业绩也不错，宝洁相信更先进的汰渍洗衣凝珠能在北美流行。2004年宝洁开始开发，希望能打造为热门产品。后来宝洁自夸说，接下来8年里，宝洁安排75名员工加入汰渍洗衣凝珠项目，邀请约6000位消费者参与市场调研，制作了超过450份包装和产品草图。

最终定稿后，开发团队都很兴奋。汰渍洗衣凝珠拿起来非常有趣，湿湿软软有弹性。颜色用了汰渍标志性蓝色和橙色，在白色背景上点缀了两点小漩涡，比当时市场上单一颜色的凝珠鲜艳得多。凝珠特地放在透明的盒子里，可以清晰展示亮眼的设计。

“我们当时就知道凝珠会成爆款。”宝洁公司负责织物和家庭护理用品销售的前主管汤姆·费舍尔说，正是该部门负责汰渍凝珠。

2012年2月发售后，证明了公司的判断没错。看起来购物者很喜欢使用上的便利，再加上彩色外形讨喜，销售额猛增。2012年宝洁发布财报时，凝珠刚上市几个月，时任首席执行官鲍勃·麦克唐纳自豪地宣称，凝珠是“过时产品创新”的好例子。根据市场研究机构欧睿国际的数据，2013年（洗衣凝珠在美国市场上市的第一个完整年度）到2018年，汰渍凝珠销售额增长了136%。在此期间，洗衣用品整体增长仅为7%。现在，汰渍凝珠已经占宝洁洗衣剂总销量的近四分之一。

2012年汰渍凝珠上市时有款广告，可以充分体现宝洁的兴奋情绪。广告里，一位女性从敞开的盒子里拿出一颗凝珠，扔到洗衣机滚筒里。背景是气泡爆裂的声音，还有Men Without Hats乐队唱的欢快歌曲“砰砰砰，走向世界”。广告结尾是标语“小泡泡，大出色”。但现在，宝洁不希望任何人把汰渍凝珠跟泡泡破裂联系在一起。

Laundry detergent injuries spiked immediately after pods came out. In 2011 there were 8,186 calls to poison-control centers regarding laundry detergent exposures among the entire population, according to the AAPCC; in 2013, that figure rose to 19,753. Emergency-department visits related to laundry detergent increased even more sharply. And each year since then, at least 85% of exposures and 79% of E.R. visits have involved children under age 6.

“The Tide Pod, as it’s designed, is an ideal product for attracting toddlers,” says Mariana Brussoni, a child psychologist at the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Research Institute. With laundry pods in general, “in terms of the colors they tend to have, the size, the feel, the fact that it can easily fit in their hands and their mouths—this is something that would be very appealing.”

Brussoni emphasizes that the risk would be greatest for children 1 or 2 years old, who are old enough to be mobile but too young to know what’s appropriate to eat. For kids that age, putting things in their mouth is “just another way of doing little experiments on the world,” and can also ease the pain of teething. Slightly older children, ages 3 and up, would be past that phase—but would recognize pods as looking like candy.

The most severe of the pod-ingestion cases have involved symptoms similar to the ones suffered by Bella Mancillas: An influx of fluid causes the lungs to flood and shut down, cutting off the flow of oxygen to the blood so severely that it can cause brain injuries such as seizures or comas. Some victims also suffer severe eye injuries from chemical burns.

There’s no consensus among health professionals as to precisely why pods have caused more serious injuries than liquid detergent has. One theory is that when the packets are bitten, their contents shoot into the throat with such force that they flow quickly down the trachea into the lungs. Another hypothesis is that the concentration of packets plays a role: Tide Pods, for example, have a 90:10 active-ingredient-to-water ratio, compared with about 50% water for liquid Tide. (Another complicating factor for health care workers: Manufacturers are not legally required to disclose all of their ingredients.)

When pods first came out and poison-control centers began getting calls, the centers followed the rules of liquid detergent poisoning: The person exposed was told to drink a bit of water, and the center would follow up after a half-hour, says Mark Ryan, president of the AAPCC. If there were no serious symptoms, the person exposed was not advised to go to a health care facility.

As poison centers increasingly witnessed severe injuries from pods, it became clear that those rules no longer applied. At the Louisiana Poison Control Center, which Ryan directs, he instructed call responders to follow up after only five to 10 minutes and monitor for respiratory issues. If those were detected, the caller was directed to go immediately to the nearest emergency room.

A few victims never got that far. Dennis Powers of Springfield, Ohio, was a kind, funny man who “never knew a stranger,” according to his daughter, Robyn. A Navy veteran and die-hard Ohio State Buckeyes fan, Dennis was diagnosed with dementia in 1999. He was still in relatively good physical health on Feb. 15, 2014, when his wife, Darlene, dropped off some groceries at home, including a pouch of Tide Pods, and went out to get more supplies.

When she returned a few hours later, Darlene says, she found Dennis slumped over the back of his white rocking chair. The chair was covered in orange dye, and there was detergent coming out of Dennis’s mouth. He barely had a pulse. Darlene called 911, but EMTs couldn’t revive Dennis and pronounced him dead at the scene. He was 67.

在凝珠问世后，洗衣剂造成的伤害案立刻增多。根据AAPCC的数据，2011年因洗衣剂伤害致电毒物控制中心有8186起；2013年数字上升到19753起。与洗衣剂有关的急诊科就诊人数增加更为明显。2013年之后，每年至少有85%的伤害和79%的急诊室就诊案例中涉及6岁以下儿童。

“汰渍洗衣凝珠的设计非常吸引幼儿。”加拿大英属哥伦比亚儿童医院研究所的儿童心理学家玛丽安娜·布鲁索尼说。总体来看各家公司生产的洗衣凝珠“颜色、大小、手感、特别适合用手拿和放进嘴里，非常容易吸引孩子。”

布鲁索尼强调，对于1岁或2岁的儿童来说风险最大，因为这么大的孩子已经可以自己走，但又分辨不出什么能吃什么不能吃。一两岁的孩子把东西放进嘴里，“只是小小探索世界的一种方式”，而且可以减轻长牙的痛苦。如果孩子稍大一点，到了3岁或3岁以上，可能就会过了喜欢啃东西的阶段，但还是会把凝珠误认为糖果。

最严重的凝珠吞食案例类似于贝拉·曼西利亚斯的经历：液体流入导致肺部积水并停止呼吸，切断血液供氧导致大脑损伤，出现癫痫或昏迷症状。一些伤者眼部出现严重的化学烧伤。

为什么凝珠造成的伤害比洗衣液严重，医疗专业人士之间还没达成共识。一种理论是，咬破凝珠时，里面的液体会喷射进喉咙，迅速顺着气管流进肺部。另一个假设是凝珠里的洗衣液更为浓缩，例如汰渍洗衣凝珠有效成分与水的比例为90:10，而汰渍洗衣液里有效成分比例约为50%。（对医疗工作者来说比较麻烦的是，没有法律要求制造商披露成分。）

AAPCC的总裁马克·瑞安说，毒物控制中心第一次接到报告凝珠中毒的电话时，主要遵循洗衣液中毒的规则：让误食者喝点水，中心会在半小时后跟进。如果没有严重症状，不建议误食者去医院。

随着毒物控制中心发现凝珠导致越来越多严重伤害，很明显不能再用老办法。在瑞安负责的路易斯安那州毒物控制中心，他让呼叫服务人员5到10分钟后就要回电，监测呼吸系统有没有问题。如果出现异常，立即让来电者送往最近的医院就诊。

然而，一些受害者最终没撑到急诊室。俄亥俄州斯普林菲尔德的丹尼斯·鲍尔斯是一位和蔼有趣的老人，他女儿罗宾说，“一个陌生人也不认识”。丹尼斯是海军老兵，俄亥俄州立大学七叶树队的死忠粉，1999年被诊断患有痴呆症。2014年2月15日，他的妻子达琳回家放下一些杂货，包括一袋汰渍洗衣凝珠，然后出去买别的东西。

达琳说，几个小时后她回到家，发现丹尼斯倒在白色摇椅的靠背上。椅子上一片橙色，丹尼斯嘴里还有洗衣液，脉搏几乎停止。达琳赶紧打911，但急救队没有救回丹尼斯，宣布他当场死亡，终年67岁。

Dennis’s autopsy report declares that he died from asphyxiation resulting from ingesting a pod. Of the 31 pods that came in the pouch, five were missing: Two were found on the floor next to Dennis’s chair, one in a drinking glass, and one in the trash can; all appeared to have been chewed. The report concludes: “The remaining pod was not found.”

Recounting the incident at her lawyer’s office in Ohio, just before the fifth anniversary of Dennis’s death, Darlene struggles to keep her composure. The only reason that could explain why Dennis ate a pod, Darlene and Robyn say, is that they look like candy. “He was used to eating swirled Life Savers,” says Darlene.

丹尼斯的尸检报告称，死因是吞食凝珠导致窒息。袋子里的31个凝珠中有5个不见了，两个在丹尼斯椅子旁的地板上，一个在酒杯里，一个在垃圾桶里，每个凝珠看起来都被咀嚼过。报告最后写着：“剩下一个凝珠没有找到。”

丹尼斯去世即将满五周年时，达琳在俄亥俄州律师事务所努力保持镇定，一边回忆了整件事。达琳和罗宾说，能解释丹尼斯吃凝珠的唯一原因就是看起来像糖果。达琳说：“他以前经常吃漩涡状的救生圈糖果。”

P&G says today that it had no unique concerns about the safety of Tide Pods at launch, given the lack of any poisoning crisis in Europe. Rick Hackman, head of North America regulatory and technical external relations at P&G, says that the company applied the same stringent safety process to the pod launch that it does to all its products.

Yet P&G took an additional step that seemed to indicate an unusual degree of caution. Immediately after the launch, the company enlisted the Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center to collect data on exposures. In response to questions from Fortune, P&G says that a panel of external medical advisers recommended the data collection because the product was new to the market. (P&G also says the company took similar action when it introduced dishwasher packets, which are similar in size and shape.)

P&G declines to say whether the commissioning of the Cincinnati data collection reflected concerns that the product was uniquely risky. But Richard Dart, head of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center at Denver Health and an expert in the field of consumer safety for over 30 years, describes this as highly unusual. With “prescription drugs, if the FDA has concerns, they will require monitoring right from the minute it enters the market,” he says. “But for consumer products, especially, I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of one that did this.”

In regulatory circles, meanwhile, the surge of pod injuries was dramatic enough to draw attention. In October 2012 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning to consumers that laundry pods, which had a “candy-like appearance,” were “an emerging public health hazard.” In March 2013 the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a statement calling on the industry to take voluntary action to address the hazard. While the CPSC has wide regulatory powers, including the ability to force a mandatory recall or unilaterally develop safety standards for a product, it uses these levers only in rare instances when a product is patently dangerous, says Cheryl Falvey, a partner at Crowell & Moring and former general counsel at the commission. Otherwise, she says, the commission prefers to nudge businesses and consumer advocates to come up with voluntary standards, which, despite their name, manufacturers are required to follow. And even in that context, the CPSC’s call for action on pods was relatively unusual—something that Falvey says happens only once or twice a year at most.

While other manufacturers also make laundry pods, P&G as the market leader took the lead role in responding—and by most accounts, the company’s actions were serious, urgent, and diligent. By mid-2012 it had already begun installing double-latch lids on the tubs containing its pods. And by the summer of 2013, P&G had changed the tubs’ design to be opaque, placating critics who felt the clear tub resembled a candy jar. Still, the number of poisonings kept climbing. In February 2015, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) introduced federal legislation that would have forced manufacturers to make the design of packets “less attractive to children” and use less caustic ingredients.

The legislators noted that they would drop the bill if the industry took stronger action on its own. In September 2015 that effort took concrete form as manufacturers, industry lobbyists, and consumer advocates approved a new set of safety rules. The standards required that pods have opaque, difficult-to-open packaging; standardized warning labels and safety icons on packages; and burst-resistant, bitter-tasting outer film.

By 2017 the new standards had been implemented across the industry. And in June 2018 the standards committee met again to review injury numbers and determine their progress. The results they saw, depending on one’s point of view, were either a reassuring sign or an indictment of a failed safety system.

现在宝洁公司表示，由于在欧洲销售时未出现中毒事件，并未担心过凝珠上市后的安全问题。宝洁北美监管和外部技术关系负责人里克·哈克曼表示，凝珠上市时采用了与所有产品相同严格的安全检验流程。

然而，宝洁这次多了一个步骤，似乎能看出内部有点格外谨慎。在产品上市后，宝洁立刻找辛辛那提药物和毒物信息中心收集有关凝珠伤害的数据。宝洁公司回答《财富》杂志的问题时称，外部医疗顾问小组建议收集数据，因为凝珠是新产品。（宝洁还表示，在推出尺寸和形状相似的洗碗机啫喱球时也采取了类似措施。）

宝洁拒绝透露，委托收集辛辛那提数据是否反映出担心凝珠存在特殊风险。但是，丹佛健康的落基山毒物和药物中心的负责人、从事消费者安全领域30多年的专家理查德·达特认为此举不同寻常。“如果美国食品与药品监督管理局对某款处方药不放心，进入市场的一刻起就会监控。”他说。“但在消费品方面，没听说过如此密切跟踪的例子。”

与此同时，凝珠造成伤害案例激增也引发监管关注。2012年10月，疾病控制和预防中心向消费者发出警告，称“糖果状”的洗衣凝珠是“公共卫生新危害”。2013年3月，消费者产品安全委员会（CPSC）发布声明，呼吁行业自愿行动解决问题。Crowell&Moring的合伙人、委员会前总顾问谢丽尔·法尔维表示，虽然CPSC拥有广泛的监管权力，包括强制召回或单方面制定产品安全标准，但只有产品存在明显危险时才会动用。她说，如果并没有明显危害，委员更倾向于推动企业和消费者代言人主动制定标准。尽管制造商负责最终制造，但必须遵守标准。即使如此，CPSC对凝珠采取行动的呼吁也有些不寻常，法尔维表示此类情况一年最多出现一两次。

虽然其他制造商也生产洗衣凝珠，但宝洁作为市场领导者，回应方面也走在前面。多数情况下，宝洁的举动比较认真及时，也很见成效。2012年年中，宝洁已经开始在凝珠包装盒上安装双锁盖。2013年夏天，宝洁将盒子设计改为不透明，以安抚认为透明盒子像糖果罐的批评者。不过，中毒人数还在不断攀升。2015年2月，参议员迪克·德尔宾（伊利诺伊州）和众议员杰克·斯贝尔（加州）从联邦立法层面施压，要求制造商“降低包装对儿童的吸引力”，并减少使用腐蚀性成分。

议员们指出，如果行业主动采取更有力的行动，将放弃推进法案。2015年9月，由于制造商、行业游说者和消费者代言人通过了一套新安全规则，相关努力终于走出了坚实一步。标准要求凝珠包装不透明且难以打开，包装上统一添加警告标示和安全图标，凝珠还要采用不易破裂且味苦的薄膜。

到2017年，新标准已经在全行业实施。2018年6月，标准委员会再次召开会议，审查受伤人数并落实进展。他们看到的结果取决于个人立场，要么令人安心，要么是失败的安全系统发出控诉。

The studies measured the impact of the industry’s safety intervention on children under 6, comparing a 12-month period before the new measures went into effect (July 2012 to June 2013) to a 12-month period after the intervention (calendar year 2017). During that time span, the number of pods sold more than doubled, from 2.1 billion to 4.7 billion, according to Nielsen data used in the reports. The upshot: The ratio of exposures to total pods sold dropped 53%; the ratio of exposures involving health care facility treatment to sales dropped 63%; and the ratio of exposures involving major medical injuries or death to sales dropped 86%.

For the industry, these were an important sign of progress. But consumer advocates at the same table saw a glass half-empty—because while injury rates, measured by market size, were down, injuries as measured by absolute numbers (and when adjusted for population growth) barely budged. Annual emergency-¬department visits dropped only slightly over that span, from 4,300 to 4,200, while total exposures actually rose slightly, from 10,229 to 10,776. (Exposures dropped to 9,440 in 2018, according to preliminary AAPCC data, but those numbers are likely to rise slightly once the data has been fully analyzed.) And the share of total exposures involving health care facility treatment—a measure of injury severity—dipped slightly, from 42% to 33%.

As Rachel Weintraub, legislative director and general counsel for the Consumer Federation of America, notes, the reports “gave both sides data, to pursue either their views that it was working very well, or views that more needed to be done.” Today, P&G cites this data as evidence that the industry’s approach is successful. “As long as we continue to see reduction in incident rates, even if the number of [poison-control] calls increased, we would think of it as progress, as the form is new and people are learning how to use it,” Damon Jones and Petra Renck of the P&G communications team told Fortune in an email.

Consumer advocates, meanwhile, argue that the industry is setting the bar too low. Measuring progress relative to market size is an incomplete measure of success, says Gary Smith, the injury expert at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, who has been part of the standards process. For 150 years, epidemiologists have used the absolute number of cases, or the number of cases relative to the population at risk, to measure public health burden, Smith says. “If this were Zika virus, and the number of cases of encephalopathy were still going up, but the number of cases per mosquito population were going down, we would take no comfort in that latter number.”

The standards group plans to meet again in mid-2019 for another progress review. Both sides hope to see further improvement, but that’s uncertain. Richard Dart, the Denver poison-control expert, notes that the decline in exposures has already started to slow. “We’d like the number of incidents to go down, and that’s how we look at public health measures across the board,” says Weintraub.

相关研究主要判断行业安全干预措施对6岁以下儿童的影响，对比了新措施实施前12个月的时间（2012年7月至2013年6月）与干预后12个月（2017年）。报告引用尼尔森数据显示，这段时间内凝珠销量翻了一番，从21亿个增加到47亿个。结果是，伤害案例占凝珠总销量比例降了53%；涉及去医院就医的伤害案例与销量的比例下降了63%；涉及重大医疗伤害或死亡的案例与销量的比例下降了86%。

在行业看来，这些数据都标志着取得进展。但在另一边的消费者代言人眼里，只看玻璃杯空着的一半，虽然按市场规模算伤害率下降，看绝对数字的话的伤害案例（根据人口增长调整后）几乎没有变化。调查期间每年前往急诊科就诊的人数仅略有下降，从4300人降至4200人，而伤害案例总数实际上略有增加，从10229人增至10776人。（根据AAPCC初步估算数据，2018年的伤害案例降至9440起，但如果充分分析数字，结果可能会略有上升。）涉及去医院治疗的伤害比例（伤害严重程度的衡量指标）略有下降，从42%降至33%。

正如美国消费者联合会的立法主任兼法律总顾问雷切尔·韦特劳布指出，报告“为双方提供了数据，一方用来证明工作进展良好，另一方则认为还有很多工作要做。”宝洁就引用数据当成行业采取干预措施成功的证据。“只要事故率持续降低，即使（毒物控制中心）接到电话的数量增加，我们也会认为出现进步，因为用凝珠洗衣服的方式是新的，人们正逐渐学习使用。” 宝洁公关团队的达蒙·琼斯和佩特拉·伦克在电子邮件里告诉《财富》杂志。

与此同时，消费者权益代表认为行业设定的门槛过低。全国儿童医院的伤害专家加里·史密斯表示，根据市场规模判断进展不够全面，史密斯参与了标准制定过程。史密斯说，150年来流行病学家一直使用绝对病例数或与病例数与高风险人群对比情况衡量公共卫生负担。“如果现在讨论的是齐卡病毒，脑病的病例数持续上升，但每个蚊子种群导致病例的数量下降，我们并不会因为比例下降高兴。”

标准制定团队计划于2019年年中再次会面，再一次审查进度。双方都希望看到进一步改善，但无法确定。丹佛毒物控制专家理查德·达特指出，伤害案例减少的速度已开始放缓。“希望伤害事件减少，这就是我们整体看待公共卫生措施的方式。”韦特劳布表示。

However one interprets the statistics, one thing is undisputed: The industry didn’t alter its approach to color. Tide has changed its signature color scheme to white, blue, and green from orange, blue, and white, but P&G says that change was not safety related. Indeed, the multihued whorls that critics see as so candy-like are still the norm in the laundry-pod world.

P&G has long argued that research shows the appearance of packets doesn’t play a role in exposures. Asked to describe that research in greater detail, P&G cites two studies conducted by the Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center—both relying on the data that the organization began collecting at P&G’s behest when Tide Pods launched.

On closer inspection, those studies don’t resolve the question. P&G provided Fortune with a copy of the first study and sent excerpts from the second, which has not been published. The unpublished study found that when examining pods based on color (single vs. colorless) and design (single-chamber vs. multichamber), the ratios of exposures roughly matched the ratios of market share—so, for example, multichamber pods made up about 70% of exposures and 70% of market share. The other found that colorless and single-color packets caused roughly the same number of exposures for children under 6 when controlled for market size.

然而不管如何解读数据，有一点无可争议，业内并没有改变配色方式。汰渍将其标志性配色从橙色、蓝色和白色改为白色、蓝色和绿色。宝洁坚称调整与安全无关，然而在批评家的眼里，糖果般彩色小妖精仍然占领着洗衣凝珠的世界。

长期以来宝洁一直认为，研究表明包装的样子与伤害并无关系。当有人要求宝洁更详细描述研究时，宝洁引用了辛辛那提药物和毒物信息中心的两项研究，数据都来自于在汰渍凝珠上市时便开始收集的资料。

认真观察就会发现，相关研究并不能解决问题。宝洁向《财富》杂志提供了第一份研究报告的副本，也发送了第二份未出版研究的摘录。未发表的研究发现，根据颜色（单色对比无色）和设计（单袋vs.多袋）研究凝珠时，导致伤害的比例大致与市场份额比例相匹配，例如，多袋凝珠约占伤害案例的70%和市场份额的70%。另一项研究发现，在市场规模同等情况下，无色和单色包装凝珠对6岁以下儿童造成的伤害数量大致相同。

P&G says it’s confident that these two studies offer sufficient evidence that appearance isn’t a factor in pod-related injuries. Arthur Caplan, founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU School of Medicine, disagrees. Caplan says that manufacturers have to “use the best science” to make their products safer, and that relying on one data set, as P&G appears to have done, is not a sufficient approach. The company, Caplan says, should also examine “data from other products that bears on this question.”

To prove or disprove a connection, health professionals say, P&G would need to study how pods’ smell, feel, and appearance—including Tide Pods’ multicolored swirls—appealed to vulnerable populations. For example, “you would need to do a randomized controlled trial, varying pod designs and monitoring reactions to them” to know for sure which factors attract young kids, says Brussoni, the child psychologist. “But to my mind, why bother? Why have these colors anyway for a product for an adult that’s doing laundry?”

For now, such research doesn’t appear to be in the cards—for any manufacturer. Jones disputes the premise of studies like those described by Brussoni. “We don’t put two different pods in front of a kid,” P&G’s Jones says, “and say, ‘Grab one.’ It’s not a real-life situation.” Rather than changing the pod design, P&G has stressed in its conversations with Fortune that making packaging more secure and educating caregivers about safe use are the most important measures it can take to improve safety. Henkel, whose laundry detergent brands include Persil and All, declined to discuss possible safety improvements but said it was compliant with the current voluntary standard. Church & Dwight, whose brands include OxiClean and Arm & Hammer, did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.

Vincent Weill, who led P&G’s efforts to incorporate design innovations into the Tide Pods product between 2012 and 2017, and who now works at a company that is not a competitor, tells Fortune that he was involved with projects to make pods safer that have continued since he left the company. Among them were reformulating the liquid to be less toxic and strengthening the packets to be more resistant to bursting or leaking.

P&G declined to comment on the projects described by Weill or any other specific possible changes. Jones describes the company’s effort to make pods safer as an “ongoing journey” of continual improvements.

宝洁公司表示，两项研究有信心提供足够的证据证明，外观并不是凝珠导致伤害的因素。纽约大学医学院医学伦理学部的创始负责人阿瑟·卡普兰并不同意。卡普兰说，制造商必须“利用最先进的科学”提升产品的安全性，像宝洁一样仅依赖数据集合是不够的。凯普兰认为，宝洁还应该检查“其他具有同样问题的产品数据”。

健康专家说，为了证明或反驳相关联系，宝洁要研究凝珠的气味、手感和外观，包括汰渍凝珠彩色漩涡状设计对脆弱人群的吸引力。举例来说，“应该做个随机对照试验，改变凝珠的设计，然后观察反应。”如此一来才能确定哪些因素会吸引幼儿，儿童心理学家布鲁索尼说。“但在我看来，有什么必要测试呢？本来就是成年人洗衣服用的，设计得花花绿绿做什么？”

目前，各家制造商都没有计划做相关研究。琼斯对布鲁索尼描述研究的前提提出了质疑。宝洁公司的琼斯说：“我们不会把两个凝珠放在孩子面前，然后说‘抓一个’，这不是现实生活中会遇到的情况。”宝洁与《财富》杂志对话时强调，加强包装的安全性并教育监护人安全使用凝珠，才是最重要的安全措施，而不是改变凝珠的设计。旗下有宝莹和All洗衣品牌的德国汉高拒绝讨论可能采取的安全改进，但表示行为符合当前的自愿标准。Church&Dwight旗下品牌包括OxiClean和Arm&Hammer，并未回应《财富》杂志的置评请求。

2012年至2017年间，文森特·威尔在宝洁开发汰渍凝珠过程中主导设计创新，目前在一家非竞争对手公司工作。他告诉《财富》杂志，自己曾经参与提升凝珠安全性的项目，他离开公司后也一直在持续，其中包括研究洗衣液新配方以降低毒性，加强包装使之更难破裂或泄漏等等。

宝洁拒绝就威尔描述的项目或其他可能的变化发表评论。琼斯则表示，宝洁一直在努力提升凝珠的安全性，是“持续的过程”。

In multiple exchanges with Fortune, P&G emphasized its efforts to educate the public on how to use pods safely—through labeling, advertising, in-person safety education sessions, and the blogs of influencers the company works with. When the Tide Pod Challenge became a sensation in late 2017, injuries were few, but the negative publicity was immediate—and P&G’s response was swift. The Tide Twitter account admonished teenagers never to eat packets. The company quickly produced a TV spot featuring All-Pro New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, lecturing, “Use Tide Pods for washing, not eating.”

P&G’s emphasis on education is a kinder, gentler version of a defense that’s common to consumer product manufacturers: that shoppers are ultimately responsible for using products properly—or not. But consumer advocates chafe at the implication that the primary fault for pod injuries lies with parents and caregivers. With a mass-market product like this, says Caplan, the ethicist, “the duty is there, when any product enters the household, to make sure that it is as safe as can be.”

Consumer advocates are adamant that detergent-makers haven’t cleared that bar. What’s more, says Gary Smith, the injury expert, American society has largely bought into the belief that household injuries are entirely about personal responsibility. “When you talk to a parent whose child has been injured and brought into the emergency department … they will tell you, ‘It wasn’t the product, doctor. It was me. I’m a bad parent. I didn’t watch my child carefully enough,’ ” Smith says. “They’ve bought the myth that it’s them that’s the problem.”

For now, federal regulators appear largely satisfied with the industry’s recent improvements. In an email to Fortune, CPSC spokesperson Patty Davis wrote approvingly of the 2017 data that “showed statistically significant declines in hospitalization rates and in [emergency-department] visits per product sold”—the same numbers P&G cites—though Davis also noted that the commission wants to keep working with the safety standards group “to reduce the unreasonable risk of ingestions.”

State and federal legislators may try to crack down more firmly. Aravella Simotas, a former lawyer who now represents a Queens district in the New York State Assembly, recalls her alarm a few years ago when her then 1-year-old daughter picked up a Tide Pod that had fallen on the floor. “She was looking at it very closely,” says Simotas, who grabbed it before her daughter could get hurt. “You have to understand, my child never put anything in her mouth.” In February 2018, Simotas and Brad Hoylman, a state senator from Manhattan, sent a letter to P&G calling on the company to change its designs and threatening to press for legislation that would ban all laundry detergent pod sales in the state “unless pods are designed in an opaque, uniform color; not easily permeated by a child’s bite; and individually enclosed in a separate child-resistant wrapper” with a warning on it. In a phone interview, Hoylman references the Tide Pod Challenge: “I’m not trying to protect stupid teenagers from making viral videos about Tide Pods. I’m trying to protect young children.”

If New York were to pass a bill, of course, its scope would be limited to one state. Legislative action at the congressional level is something consumer advocates aren’t counting on, since the odds of a laundry-pod bill being passed by a Senate that’s skeptical of regulation, and signed by a President who has vowed to reduce the regulatory burden on companies, seem slim.

与《财富》杂志的多次交流中，宝洁不断强调各种努力，包括贴标签、做广告、参与人身安全教育会议以及与公司合作的意见领袖博客教育公众安全使用凝珠等等。2017年年底“汰渍凝珠调整”引起轰动时，受伤人数很少，但负面宣传立即出现，宝洁的反应很迅速。汰渍在推特上的官方号劝告青少年不要吃凝珠。宝洁还迅速制作了一条广告，片中英格兰爱国者橄榄球队的边锋罗布·格罗科夫斯基说：“用汰渍凝珠洗衣服，不要吃下去。”

宝洁重视消费者教育其实是一种更温和的自我辩护，也是消费品制造商常用的手段。宝洁的潜台词是，到最后产品使用正确与否，责任在消费者自己身上。消费者代言人则对宝洁暗示凝珠导致伤害主要责任在父母和监护人身上很不满。伦理学家卡普兰表示，像凝珠这样大规模上市的产品，“制造商要负起责任，确保进入家庭时尽可能安全。”

消费者代言人坚持认为，洗衣液制造商并未清除安全方面的障碍。美国社会伤害专家加里·史密斯认为，更严重的是美国社会基本上接受了宝洁的说辞，即家庭出现伤害完全是个人责任。“跟孩子进急诊室的家长谈话时，他们都会说：‘医生，不是产品的问题。是我的错。我不是个好爸爸/妈妈，没看好孩子。’”史密斯说。“他们都相信是问题出在自己身上。”

目前，联邦监管机构似乎对最近行业的改善进展基本满意。CPSC发言人帕蒂·戴维斯发给《财富》杂志的电子邮件中赞许地写道，2017年的数据“显示与销量相比住院率和（急诊科）就诊率在统计上明显下降”。尽管与宝洁引用的数字相同，但戴维斯也指出，委员会希望继续与安全标准小组合作。“降低不合理误食的风险。”

州和联邦立法者可能会更坚决打击。前律师阿拉维拉·西莫塔斯如今在纽约州议会代表皇后区，她对几年前的惊险情景记忆犹新，当时1岁的女儿拿起一个落在地板上的汰渍凝珠。“她非常认真地看着凝珠。”西莫塔斯说，幸好她赶在女儿受伤之前夺了过来。“之前我女儿从来没随便吃过东西。”2018年2月，西莫塔斯和代表曼哈顿的州参议员布拉德·霍伊曼给宝洁公司发了一封信，呼吁改变设计，要求做到“凝珠不透明，采用统一颜色；不容易被孩子咬破；用不容易吸引孩子的包装纸单独包装”，包装纸上应该有警告，否则将立法禁止在纽约州销售洗衣凝珠。在一次电话采访中，霍伊曼提到了汰渍凝珠挑战：“我并不是在阻止愚蠢的青少年制作吃凝珠的病毒视频。只是在保护年幼的孩子。”

当然，如果纽约州通过法案，范围只会影响一个州。消费者代言人也不指望国会层面采取立法行动，因为参议院对监管持怀疑态度，总统又宣称要减轻公司监管负担，针对洗衣凝珠通过法案的可能性很小。

It’s too early to tell whether private lawsuits could move the needle further than the government has. Richard Schulte, an attorney with Wright & Schulte who is bringing legal claims on behalf of the Mancillas and Powers families, says his firm is attempting to reach settlements with P&G outside the court system on 70 cases. He says the firm has resolved all of its claims against other pod manufacturers out of court.

The main reason there aren’t many lawsuits against pod manufacturers, Schulte says, is that most lawyers don’t know how dangerous the product is. “When I tell other top trial lawyers, confidentially, that I’m bringing claims against the pod manufacturers, they look at me like I’m a martian,” he says. Furthermore, most pod-related cases involve injuries that are not life-threatening and thus won’t command large payouts if they win.

P&G declines to comment on whether it has paid any out-of-court settlements. Tellingly, P&G has never mentioned Tide Pod litigation as a business risk in its 10-K filings, going back to 2012, the year its pods were launched. (In contrast, Johnson & Johnson’s latest 10-K has a long section on liabilities that describes, among other things, the financial risks incurred through lawsuits that have linked J&J’s talcum powders to cancer.)

That leaves the court of public opinion, where P&G will presumably suffer only if it’s perceived as not putting the safety of its customers first. Pod sales growth has slowed at P&G since the product’s heady early days, but sales were still up 4.4% year over year in 2018, at $1.17 billion, per Euromonitor, and the company’s stock hit an all-time high in early February.

Consumers, meanwhile, are left to make calculations of their own about the value of convenience versus risk. That math is still playing out in the lives of Katie and Bella Mancillas. Katie says that arguments with Bella’s father about the poisoning incident contributed to the divorce they’re going through. Only 23 years old at the time, Katie dropped out of college to take care of Bella. She is now studying to be a social worker.

Katie’s own conclusion about laundry pods: “Take the extra five minutes to pour the laundry [detergent] yourself. It’s not worth losing your children.”

This article originally appeared in the March 2019 issue of Fortune.

现在判断私人诉讼是否会不会比政府更快还说不好。Wright & Schulte事务所律师理查德·舒尔特代表曼西利亚斯和鲍尔斯家提起诉讼，他表示目前争取跟宝洁就70起案件达成庭外和解。据他介绍，之前针对其他凝珠制造商的索赔案件均已达成庭外解决。

舒尔特说，之所以现在针对凝珠制造商的诉讼不多，主要因为大多数律师并不了解这种产品有多危险。“我私下告诉其他顶级的出庭律师要对洗衣凝珠制造商提起诉讼，他们看我的眼神仿佛我是火星人。”他说。此外，大多数与凝珠相关的案件涉及的人身伤害不危及生命，因此就算赢得诉讼也不会要求巨额赔偿。

宝洁拒绝透露有没有付钱庭外和解。值得注意的是，2012年也就是凝珠上市以来，宝洁在其10-K报告里从未提过汰渍洗衣凝珠诉讼存在商业风险。（相比之下，强生公司最新的10-K报告里用很长篇幅介绍责任，其中介绍了强生滑石粉与癌症相关诉讼产生的财务风险。）

如此一来只能靠公众舆论的法庭，也就是说只有人们认定宝洁没有做到客户安全第一时，宝洁才可能遭受损失。度过早期令人兴奋的阶段后，宝洁洗衣凝珠销售增长已经放缓，但欧睿数据显示，2018年销售额仍然同比增长4.4%，达11.7亿美元，2月初宝洁股票创下历史新高。

与此同时，消费者只能自行判断便利的价值与承担风险孰轻孰重。在凯蒂和贝拉·曼西拉的生活里，二者的关系仍然算不清。凯蒂说，贝拉中毒后两人不断争吵，最终只能离婚。当年凯蒂只有23岁，后来辍学照顾贝拉，现在正努力学习希望成为社会工作者。

凯蒂对洗衣凝珠的结论是：“应该多花五分钟自己倒洗衣液。伤到孩子太不值得了。”（财富中文网）

本文首发于2019年3月的《财富》杂志。

译者：冯丰

审校：夏林