While I haven’t been witness to any exceptional quality practices, I remember reading about how the auto industry handles mechanical defects in some of their parts. Apparently, if a defect is discovered (usually through an injury or malfunction report) the data gets collected by the company. Once the issue is determined to be a manufacturing defect, the companies will assess the number of individuals that are affected. They then do a risk analysis, weighing the cost of doing nothing, providing a recall or notifying possible car owners about the issue. If the analysis shows that it would be less expensive to do nothing or just wait for injuries to occur and pay the cost of compensation, they may take that option. I found this practice to be disturbing, as it indicates an informed decision to put the product users’ health at risk. Whether this is still true or not, I am not entirely sure, but I feel that a practice like this would be a good example of an ethical issue in QA and/or QC.