Once the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) prohibits thesale of a particular product in the United States, a manufacturercan no longer sell the product to U.S. wholesalers or retailers.However, the product can be sold in other countries that have notprohibited its sale. The same is true of other countries' sales tothe United States. For example, Great Britain outlawed the sale ofthe prescription sleeping pill, Halcion, but sales of the drugcontinue in the U.S. The British medical community reachedconclusions regarding the pill's safety that differed from theconclusions reached by the medical community and the Food and DrugAdministration in the U.S. Some researchers who conducted studieson the drug in the U.S. simply concluded that stronger warninglabels were needed.

The CPSC outlawed the sale of three-wheeled all-terrain cyclesin the U.S. in 1988. While some manufacturers had already turned tofour-wheel models, other manufacturers still had inventories ofthree-wheel cycles. Testimony on the cycles ranged from contentionsthat the vehicles themselves were inherently dangerous, toarguments that the vehicles

were safe but drivers were too young, too inexperienced, andmore inclined to take risks. Still, the three-wheeled vehicle canbe sold outside the U.S. For many companies, chaos follows aproduct recall because inventory of the recalled product may behigh. Often, firms must decide whether to "dump" the product inother countries or take a write-off that could

damage earnings, stock prices, and employment stability. If youwere a manufacturer holding substantial inventory of a product thathas been outlawed in the U.S., what ethical concerns would you haveabout selling the product in countries that do not [yet] prohibitits sale? Please discuss those concerns and the arguments for andagainst taking action based on those concerns. To what extent willyour decision be affected by the level of the write-down in incomeyou must take?