Damages to Infants
Amid outbreaks of rash and urticaria on children using infant mats made of the most advanced new material allegedly developed by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and sold by Borny Korea, a domestic baby goods manufacturer, the Korea Agency for Technology and Standards said it launched an investigation into Borny Korea's infant air mats that caused the controversy on June 8.
"This is driving me crazy. I am very frantic but I will try to write my story. For two months, rashes spread throughout the body of my baby such as the back, stomach but I could not find the cause. I took my baby to a university hospital, but I failed what caused the rashes. Then I heard that Borny Korea’s air mat, Outlast was blamed for the trouble. I laid my baby on the air mat for more than 20 hours a day every day. What has the air matt done to my baby who is only 136 days old? What if this will become a second Oxy Humidifier Disinfectant Incident. I am very anxious," said a person who posted her damage case on Instastram on June 3.
Since then, the post has spread through Instagram and various online sites. Similar cases have been posted by people claimed that they also suffered from Borny Korea's Outlast. They suspected that residua created by scratching the Outlast fabric were triggering the skin rash."
Borny Korea has said that Outlast is made of a state-of-the-art new material developed by NASA in the US," and that "when a body emits heat, the fabric absorbs the heat and releases the heat when it is cold, controlling body temperature." The temperature control function is helpful for infants who are immature and have much fever, they explained.
"We apologize to everyone and parents involved once again for this incident," Borny Korea said on its homepage. "When we first saw Outlast in a foreign country, we thought it was good for babies with fevers or atopy. We did not find any problems when we received test certificates and imported the material. The material also passed a test for children’s safety in Korea, too. So, we launched the product in Korea without any suspicion.