Don't Panic! Music Mixer mic safe

Observant consumers may gasp when they pick up the package containing the Xbox Music Mixer and its microphone peripheral. On the bottom, an innocuous-looking label warns that the microphone "contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, and birth defects or other reproductive harm. Wash hands after using." (Emphasis in the original.)

While the warning may seem alarming to those outside California, residents will be all too familiar with the notice, which appears--minus the hand-washing notice--in almost every garage, stairwell, liquor store, restaurant, and apartment building in the Golden State. Under California Proposition 65--the only such law in the union--any item or location containing potentially carcinogenic chemicals must post a sign or, in the case of the microphone, be affixed with a warning. The label only appears on Xbox Music Mixers sold in California.

A spokesperson for Mad Catz, the peripheral-maker who manufactured the microphones, assured GameSpot that the mics were safe to use. "Although the level of chemicals used in the Xbox Music Mixer Microphone cord is nearly untraceable," she said, "Mad Catz is the only video game accessory company to comply with this proposition, [and] therefore [we] have displayed the mandatory warning label." The hand-washing notice is also required by law.

However, the spokesperson went on to emphasize that future production of the Xbox Music Mixer won't contain the label-warranting chemical, whatever it may be.