"Crazy for you" Teddybear in straightjacket unpopular with mental health advocates

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The Vermont Teddy Bear Co. will continue to sell a bear wearing a straitjacket through Valentine's Day, despite opposition by the state's mental health community.

See the bear here!

The company said Wednesday it would not pull the controversial $70 "Crazy for You" bear from its Valentine's Day lineup. It did apologize if the stuffed animal offended anyone.

"We recognize that this is a sensitive, human issue and sincerely apologize if we have offended anyone," the Shelburne-based company said in a statement released late Wednesday afternoon. "This was certainly not our intent. This bear was created in the spirit of Valentine's Day and as with all of our bears it was designed to be a light-hearted depiction of the sentiment of love."

Light-hearted is not how the state's mental health community viewed the 15-inch bear, which comes complete with commitment papers and is a gift designed "for someone you're crazy about."

The Vermont chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill complained about the bear in a letter Monday to the 20-year-old bear manufacturer, calling it a "tasteless use of marketing that stigmatizes persons with mental illness."

It was the first formal criticism of the product since it appeared for sale days ago, and the alliance asked the company to pull it from its shelves.

On Wednesday, one of the state's leading mental health advocates ripped Vermont Teddy Bear's decision to keep selling the bear and suggested that opposition to the bear would intensify.

"It's most inappropriate to use this campaign," Libertoff said. "To the degree that a straitjacket is used for a marketing tool as a certain comic twist is most inappropriate."

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