Several months ago I spoke with a Mr. Brown from Cadence Scientific in context to problems I was experiencing with needles produced by this company.  The basic symptom was leakage at the junction where the needle stem connects with its hub and this seemed to be exacerbated depending on the method used to bend the needle.  This leakage did not occur in older lots of needles which had the Popper and Sons label on the box that they come in.  Mr. Brown told me that these needles are formed by a press on manufacturing process and the only way to have a completely leak free needle was to use needles that had their stems welded to the hub.  As for the leak free performance of older lots of needles I was told that possibly machinery had worn to the point that construction of newer lots were not of the same quality as those made some years back.  Below I include two photographs of a catastrophic failure that occurred on a lot purchased from Cadence Scientific this year by a friend of mine.  In this instance the needle was never bent; however, the stem of the needle actually pulled free from its hub once withdrawn from a GC septum.  The needle had only seen very light use prior to its failure.  The bottom line to the reader is to proceed with extreme caution when using needles from this company.