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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ihuxn!gadfly
From: gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: Tylenol
Message-ID: <1377@ihuxn.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Mar-86 18:02:30 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxn.1377
Posted: Sun Mar 16 18:02:30 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Mar-86 04:36:51 EST
References: <190@drutx.UUCP> <1368@ihuxn.UUCP> <2007@hao.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 29

--
[I wrote]
> > they're *all* made at the same factory (in Puerto Rico) where
> > it would be a lot easier for some paranoid malcontent to modify
> > the contents before they're sealed.  Why couldn't this have
> > happened?  The reported line is simply that it didn't, or it
> > was ruled out.  Anyone know why?

>   Simple probability. Since they ARE all made at the same factory, the
> odds on two bottles tainted at the factory  showing up a few blocks
> away from each other, and so far nowhere else, are astronomical.
> 
> --Greg

But is that really true?  Let's say the culprit tampers with five
bottles at the factory.  They're on the line, one right after the other.
Odds are, those 5 will stay together for a while, through a lot of
packing and distribution (assuming that the stuff is shipped in
fairly large lots).  If the tainted bunch is ever broken up, I'd
expect that to happen very late in the distribution.  And so finding
2 tainted bottles within a 1/2 mile of each other would not be so
improbable.
-- 
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