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I'm glad these are available for adults but the danger to children and pets is very real. A kid eats a magnet waits a while then eats another one. The magnets

I'm glad these are available for adults but the danger to children and pets is very real. A kid eats a magnet waits a while then eats another one. The magnets are strong enough to find each other through the intestinal walls. The result is pretty horrifying, so be careful with strong magnetic toys.

jemfinch 10y ago
No doubt the injuries are horrifying, but so are fireworks-related burns and gunshot wounds. It's hard to imagine a world where neodymium magnets should be more regulated than fireworks and firearms, but that's the world we lived in before the 10th circuit vacated the CPSC's regulatory overreach.
- DanBC 10y ago
  We don't sell fireworks nor guns to children. (At least, in the UK we don't). The magnet companies sold these items as a toy to children and resisted efforts to put warnings on them and resisted efforts to stop them being sold to children.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    On the contrary, Buckyballs was never marketed to children, and had clear warnings all over them. They were still pushed into closure by the CPSC. Even after they were clearly marked "Keep Away From All Children". If we can't sell things to adults because they're dangerous to children, we might as well close... well, all hardware stores.
    - clarkevans 10y ago
      Hardware stores have mostly uninteresting tools -- Buckyballs are toys.
      - zardo 10y ago
        >Hardware stores have mostly uninteresting tools My nephews don't think tools or random bits of hardware are uninteresting. I certainly didn't either. If you're of a mind to play, the world is nothing but toys.
        DanBC 10y ago
        Some adults will let their children use power tools. They'll make sure there's the discussion about safety, they'll do a bit of supervision. They'll hopefully include safety glasses. Everyone knows a drill is dangerous. No-one just hands a hammer drill to a six year old and leaves them to it. The regulator's point about the magnets is that the manufacturers didn't manage to stop them being sold in toy shops to children, and that even with the warnings parents were giving them to children as toys. And, even compared to random bits of hardware store: if you swallow a nail you're probably going to be ok. If you swallow magnets you're probably going to need medical help.
        dpark 10y ago
        > if you swallow a nail you're probably going to be ok. As long as you're okay with sepsis from a perforated intestine, then sure.
        DanBC 10y ago
        No, in most cases the child is going to be fine. This is exactly the point - swallowing a nail is a bad idea but is unlikely to cause significant harm. Swallowing a magnet doesn't look as bad as swallowing a nail (the magnets are smooth and shiny, sometimes round, and very small), but the consequences are usually worse.
        dpark 10y ago
        I'm not sure I believe that. Depending on the size of the nail and how sharp it is, it could pass through, but could also puncture something along the way or get lodged. If a child swallows anything larger than a dime, the standard recommendation is to seek medical attention.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      > Buckyballs was never marketed to children, The first warning label on Buckyballs said 13+. Anyone under 18 is a child.
      - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
        By most conventional definitions, 13+ is a teen. Apparently, in 2010, Congress extended the definition of "child" up to age 14[0], and the CPSC started their complaint on that one year differential. And Buckyballs, for example, changed their notice then to "Keep Away From All Children" and agreed not to sell them at stores like Toys R Us. Two years later from them voluntarily making those changes, the CPSC sued them and sequentially drove them out of business. The facts fall staunchly in opposition to your comments suggesting that they were resistant to applying warning labels, and actively trying to market them to children. This is why all of your comments stating such are downvoted into the grey. One of your other comments claims all the CPSC wanted was warnings, but the reality is that the CPSC worked to drive these companies out of business after all of the warnings were present. [0] http://gizmodo.com/how-buckyballs-fell-apart-1609183224 http://gizmodo.com/how-buckyballs-fell-apart-1609183224
  - jemfinch 10y ago
    > The magnet companies sold these items as a toy to children and resisted efforts to put warnings on them and resisted efforts to stop them being sold to children. That's categorically false.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      > That's categorically false. No it's not. This submission is about one company resisting the regulatory action created when buckyballs continued to sell the product to 14 year olds, even though they knew teenagers were among the > 1000 children hospitalised by these magnets.
      - jontas 10y ago
        Do you have anything to back up this claim? I worked intimately with these companies and saw nothing of the sort.
      - burfog 10y ago
        There are places, not just in the 3rd world, where a 14-year-old can get married or drive a vehicle or have a gun. These are not children.
      - anigbrowl 10y ago
        Dan you're being wildly untruthful here. Buckyballs were sold with very clear warnings and it is not their fault if people ignore those warnings. Are you really trying to argue that a 14 year old is so overcome by the overwhelming desire to experience magnetic forces that s/he is unable to read a warning label, and the only sensible course of action is to halt all sales of the product? Come off it.
        DanBC 10y ago
        This submission is not about buckyballs, but buckyballs and zenmagnets worked hard to resist the efforts of the regulators. The warnings you talk about on buckyballs did not say "adults only", they said "13+". It is dishonest to suggest that buckyballs didn't sell to children and to say that buckyballs included warnings about not selling to children when the warnings said 13+. > Are you really trying to argue that a 14 year old is so overcome by the overwhelming desire to experience magnetic forces that s/he is unable to read a warning label That's what happened, yes. Children are by definition fucking idiots. That's why we don't let them drive; drink alcohol; vote; run for office; enter into contracts; join the military; live by themselves; get married; have sex; etc. >, and the only sensible course of action is to halt all sales of the product? Come off it. I'm saying we tried warning labels. Parents and children and toy stores ignored those warnings, and children ended up hospitalised as a result. The manufacturers resisted attempts to strengthen the warnings; regulators were forced into issuing a ban because soft-touch regulation failed. The manufacturers brought this upon themselves by not controlling their supply chain properly and by resisting better clearer warnings.
  - mibbiting 10y ago
    I bought some years ago, and had fun playing with them with my children. If you need a warning saying that eating a magnet is dangerous, you're not very clever. And if your child (Lets say over the age of 3) is still eating random non-food items without checking with you, then you're not doing a great parenting job. Don't you think the whole "put a warning sticker on everything" is getting a bit ridiculous?
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      I believe that most people would probably assume that it's similar to eating a coin or other small piece of non-sharp metal -- it's not good, but it's generally not potentially life-threatening. If you spend a little bit of time thinking about how strong magnets can probably attract each other through internal tissue, the risk makes sense, but it doesn't seem like something that's obvious, at least not to me. This is one circumstance where awareness/warning labels are really useful, but unfortunately we hear so many frivolous warnings people are not likely to take them seriously. Everyone should know that these contraptions were literally banned at one point for the risk they pose to children, and the disclaimers encountered are not just generic CYA, but representative of a real risk to small children that has a real body count. Like the GP, I'm glad that these are legal in the United States again, but we should not take the issue of informing parents of the risk involved with these toy-like objects lightly. A similar issue is being posed by the small watch batteries included in many children's toys and remote controls these days. Children swallow these and they burn holes in their organs that result in serious disabilities. It's important that parents be aware of such non-obvious environmental dangers.
      - cmiles74 10y ago
        Small watch batteries are an interesting example, I don't recall seeing any warning stickers on these toys or their packaging. Perhaps something is buried in the back of an instruction manual, but that would be obviously ineffective.
        mibbiting 10y ago
  - CapitalistCartr 10y ago
    I bought some. They were clearly labeled and clearly not marketed to children. I don't know where you're getting your magnets; perhaps a boot sale?
    - DanBC 10y ago
      The reason you bought yours with a warning label on and not as a toy for children is because the regulators forced that to happen.
      - snowwrestler 10y ago
        Not many people are going to object to that type of regulatory intervention. Labels are fine. It was the outright ban that pissed people off.
        DanBC 10y ago
        But the labels failed; the restriction of sales failed; and some of the companies were resisting better labelling and tighter controls over sales. This was the first court case CPSC took in 13 years to force a recall. That doesn't sound like an out of control regulator.
      - zeveb 10y ago
        And American regulators tried to ban importation altogether. That's what this story is about. Regulators & regulations aren't an unmitigated good. They can be better than their lack, or they can be worse.
      - CapitalistCartr 10y ago
        Which the customers, nanufacturers, and retailers all support. Its the regulators who object, claiming only banning is acceptable.
  - tn13 10y ago
    Magnet companies do not benefit when a child dies. On the contrary it can put all their business at total risk. Magnet companies are more likely to care about their customers than government caring about my child. > We don't sell fireworks nor guns to children. UK is not a good example because they dont even sell hardware tools to kids. That is simply wussyfication of the society.
    - matt4077 10y ago
      > On the contrary it can put all their business at total risk. ...mostly by regulation, right? I mean – we can all hope that all parent read about all accidents that kill people and then independently come to the smart conclusion, including a level-headed appreciation of the risk, normalized within the background context and the market penetration of ultra-strong magnets... or – better idea – let's put some smart people in a room and let them make a recommendation. There's even a staunchly capitalistic argument for regulation: it's the only reason we trust food from a supermarket we've never visited before, or a new toy, or an online bank, or a really fast looking electric car from California made by this guy who mostly deals in explosions controlled by 400,000 mechanical parts all supplied by the lowest bidder. In other words: Regulation creates the trust that's essential for any economic activity.
      - tn13 10y ago
        > ...mostly by regulation, right? Mostly by bad reviews, lawsuites and bad PR. One good example of this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide While everyone thinks that it was an evil pharma that should have stopped by regulators it appears that the pharma company lost billions but saved by regulators instead. >we can all hope that all parent read about all accidents that kill people and then independently come to the smart conclusion Neither parent not bureaucrats can do that 100% correctly. Parents can do it infinitely better that the people in washington. Babies will die no matter what. > let's put some smart people in a room and let them make a recommendation. Like smart people deciding on housing loans, student loans, cheaper healthcare, invasion of Iraq ? It eventually snowballs into a giant problem that makes the original problem far less worse. Smart people do not possess the intelligence or information to make decisions for others.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    The magnet companies sold these items as a toy to children and resisted efforts to put warnings on them and resisted efforts to stop them being sold to children. This is just not true. I bought a lot of Buckyballs (a brand of magnet) before they were taken off sale and they had very clear and prominent warnings on them which I read and took seriously because I am an adult. Neither I nor the manufacturer are responsible for people who won't do that. Now maybe you can cite a manufacturer in the UK who showed disregard for such regulation, but we're talking about a regulatory body in the US which insisted on taking products off sale even though the manufacturers were fully compliant with the regulatory demands. Please stick within the factual context.
- slg 10y ago
  Those examples are obviously dangerous while magnets are not. A parent is going to leave their 2 year old playing with a loaded gun, but they might leave them to play with a bunch of magnets without realizing the danger.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    That's what warning labels are for. A policy of banning any product for which the general public isn't fully informed of the dangers is a policy which prevents the public from becoming aware of dangers and mitigating them. ("A week ago there was no acceptable warning, no acceptable age, no sales restriction nor waiver that allowed production of magnets like Zen Magnets, Buckyballs, Neoballs, Magnicube or Neocubes.") Also, there are no warning labels on balloons, much less are they banned, but, as the OP points out, balloons are the #1 cause of child suffocation. It's clear here that these rules aren't being made based on any sensible cost-benefit regulatory consideration, they are just putting unnecessary burdens on new products and grandfathering in the old ones because this is the path of least blame/resistance.
    - evan_ 10y ago
      There actually are warning labels on balloons, plastic bags, and the like warning of suffocation/choking hazard.
      - jessriedel 10y ago
        Sorry, yes, I should have said "Warning labels aren't mandated for balloons...". For instance, the first result for "balloons" on amazon doesn't show any warning labels on the exterior package or the front of the interior bag. https://smile.amazon.com/Kings-Deal-10color-Latex-Balloons/dp/B00KJHCU2U https://smile.amazon.com/Kings-Deal-10color-Latex-Balloons/d... (Maybe it's in small type on the back?) EDIT: Was able to find this PDF, which says that latex balloons must be labeled if they are intended for children under 12. But presumably nothing is required if intended for adults. http://mohawkglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/labeling-childrens-products.pdf http://mohawkglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/labeling-...
- Pica_soO 10y ago
  You dont see the wound. Your kid has tummy ache. Then a slight fever. Then a strong fever. Then a whole body inflammation and exitus-experience. Parents can be quite ignorant of this. I had a broken appendix as kid, and was already drifting out of the world, when my parents finally decided to get a doctor. Interior wounds are not visible until it is over. Still magnets are awesome.
  - ar0b 10y ago
    I wonder how an MRI would turn out in this scenario.
    - ars 10y ago
      An MRI would pull the magnet through the body. That would make quite the horrible wound. But no doctor would order an MRI first, physical examination then one or two X rays first would be standard.
dpark 10y ago
They should definitely be labeled clearly because they present real danger. However, there are far stronger magnets that pose an equal or worse danger that are for sale home stores, craft stores, and grocery stores across the country. There's nothing about these little magnets that make them worse than button magnets except for negligent adults.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > There's nothing about these little magnets that make them worse than button magnets except for negligent adults. When you buy an item marketed and sold as a toy you have a reasonable expectation that it's not going to cause the death of your child.
  - dpark 10y ago
    You mean like silly putty or the thousands of other toys that present choking hazards to children? All toys are not appropriate for all children. I wouldn't give my daughter magnets to play with. I also wouldn't give her silly putty or dice or a chemistry set. She's too young. Eventually she can have all these things and a gallon of bleach under her bathroom sink. But not for quite a while.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      But eating small amounts of silly putty isn't going to kill me, and there's no reason to eat silly putty, and it's quite unpleasant tasting. These magnet companies knew that teenagers were using the magnets for fake piercing jewellery. They knew there was a risk that young people were eating the jewellery, and they resisted putting warnings on the packs and resisted moving the product off toy shelves.
      - dpark 10y ago
        > But eating small amounts of silly putty isn't going to kill me But choking on a wad of silly putty definitely can. Hence the fact that it's labeled as a choking hazard and not for young children. I don't think the bar for "should be banned" is "small amounts are dangerous". A "small amount" of Scrabble can kill your kid, despite there being "no reason" to eat Scrabble tiles, but we don't ban it. Toy stores sell balloons and jacks and dice and all kinds of things that pose real dangers to kids. > These magnet companies knew that teenagers were using the magnets for fake piercing jewellery. Shrug? Car manufacturers know teens are racing cars and snowboard manufacturers know teens are riding down black diamonds with little skill and no helmets. Teens do stupid things and we don't ban entire categories of product to attempt to protect them from minor dangers. > * they resisted putting warnings on the packs and resisted moving the product off toy shelves.* Did they actually resist labeling them or just resist the ban? If they resisted labeling, that's pointless and dumb and it's perfectly reasonable that they be required to label clearly and appropriately.
rhinoceraptor 10y ago
It seems like an easy way to prevent that is clearly marking the packaging (which they did), and to package them in a good case so that the user can easily tell if any of the magnets are missing when they are put away.
komali2 10y ago
Well, that's nice to have the same exact warning here in the comments that the article has, but I'm not sure it's necessary?
tptacek 10y ago
There were also incidents involving teenagers using them as jewelry.
- bryondowd 10y ago
  Any links or further explanation? Tried searching myself, but not enough to really go on. Couldn't think (specifically) how wearing them as jewelry could go wrong.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Sorry, as lip jewelry. It was in the CPSC filings.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      I remember this from when they were first banned. But I just fail to see how it's the manufacturer's fault when they say 'don't do this, it's a really bad idea' and people just do it anyway. I know teenagers do stupid things, and that they're more likely to do stupid things in the name of fashion. I'm old enough to recall the 1980s when body art first took off and it became cool for guys to wear earrings without being a pirate or a gypsy. I pierced my own ears around this time, despite being warned about everything from the risk of infection to the possibility of illness by hitting an acupuncture point (a risk what was inexplicably not assumed to be true for girls). Well not only did I end up with holes in my ears but over a the years they did get infected on a few occasions when I didn't clean my earrings properly, and I had to clean out a small but painful and gross cyst. None of this is the fault of the people who manufacture earrings. No results yet on the acupuncture danger but after 30 years I'm beginning to think that warning may have been misplaced.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        I'm pretty ambivalent about this whole issue, but would like to point out that the ban was not on "magnets", but on these particular magnets when packaged and marketed as toys. There's a reason the CPSC banned lawn darts but not blowtorches or medical sharps or the safety pin you probably used to pierce your ear. There's not much ambiguity about the dangerous things the CPSC doesn't care about. But you can't say that about the magnets, which cause truly horrible medical calamities that most ordinary people do not expect. Also, not sure if we were just hiding on different ends of HN or whatever, but it's good to bump into you again!
xutopia 10y ago
My kids knew not to put just about anything in their mouths by the time they had the fine motor skills required to pick up one of the magnets.
- onion2k 10y ago
  You should be thankful that you were fortunate enough to have children bright enough to learn that lesson early in life, and who are capable of abstraction without direct experience. Other people's children don't pick up those skills until quite a lot later. The implication of what you're saying is that you think the children of parents who don't teach them this important lesson early enough should be allowed to die. That's an incredibly harsh outlook.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Unless and until we limit childbearing to people of proven competence - hardly a desirable goal - then that's the outcome we have to accept. I'm not willing to live in kindergarten conditions just because some other people are terrible parents.
    - onion2k 10y ago
      I'm not willing to live in kindergarten conditions just because some other people are terrible parents. This isn't about you. This is about people who don't know what you know. In this case you understand the danger so you think the warnings are an unnecessary insult to your intelligence because you find them obvious. You're ignoring the people out there who don't understand the danger. Imagine a situation where your child came in to contact with something you know nothing about - you'd want information right there in front of you printed on the side, even if someone else who has experience and knowledge about the thing thought that warning was ridiculous. The suggestion that we should let parents bring dangerous things in to their houses without warnings because they ought to understand the dangers already is utterly ridiculous. The 'kindergarten conditions' you're talking about is having sensible warnings on things. Why would it be better to have empty space, or a marketing message, or a pretty picture where that warning is if the warning could save someones life? It simply isn't, and if you believe it is then you are wrong.
openclosed 10y ago
Ensuring safety at home is the role of parents (where reasonable oversight is enough), not a paternalistic government prone to overreach. If parents themselves are generally too ignorant, then there's a much bigger problem. (Odd that someone used a downvote on this.)
tn13 10y ago
Thanks for pointing out the threat. It was not immediately clear to me why anyone would ban magnets. I hope people who make toys out of those come up with clever ways to educate parents about their danger.
lvs 10y ago
There are many things your kids shouldn't eat. Like a bottle of bleach or my circular saw. We don't need to ban them all. That's really too silly.
- bunderbunder 10y ago
  Bleach and circular saws don't happen to look exactly like a certain kind of candy (dragees). This is fairly subtle issue, and strawman analogies add nothing of value to the conversation.
  - lvs 10y ago
    Yes, but the switch on my saw looks just like a fun red pushable button, and my bleach looks like a milk bottle. It isn't a straw man. The question is how ultra-safe you'd like your society to be. My argument is that we have dangers all around, and some acceptable and reasonable risk must be associated with living. And it's unavoidable to boot. The society that believes that cushioning every corner eliminates daily risks is living a lie. The trouble is that if you say that banning magnets is reasonable, nobody listens to you when you tell them that banning the sale of automatic weapons should also be. You're crying wolf with the damn magnets. There are bigger fish to fry!
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    It's not subtle at all. Why are we protecting candy manufacturers who make candy that resembles ball bearings? Most likely for no other reason than that we have been used to such novelty candy since we were kids ourselves, and somehow learned to distinguish between candy and actual ball bearings so as not to eat the latter. Why are we expected to believe that adults can't tell the difference between candy and powerful magnets just because they're both shiny and metallic-looking? Why are the very clear warnings supplied with the product somehow unreadable in the face of their shiny roundness?
CamperBob2 10y ago
So, require them to be sold with warning labels. Problem solved.
oneplane 10y ago
Sure thing, but everything is dangerous if you let kids eat them. Imagine your kids drinking bleach because it looks like lemonade. Or sitting on the stove because it's nice and warm. Or eating bees because they are nice and fuzzy. Or eating batteries because they ace small and shiny. Or eating the buttons off of their shirts, which then may be brittle, break inside their bodies and puncture something. Or what about sitting behind a door and someone then opening that door, hitting them just the wrong way causing permanent blindness... It's just strange that people seem to want to point at super specific things and say: "those are inherently dangerous!" We could agree that oxygen is dangerous because it reacts with almost anything. Does that mean we're going to have oxygen banned? :p
- codingdave 10y ago
  Apply the standard risk management quadrants -- magnets are small and easy to swallow, so the likelihood of an incident is high if magnets exist in toys. The consequence is emergency medical interventions, which is also high. So it falls into the worst quadrant. Many of the other things you mentioned have either a lower likelihood, or lower consequence, so they are not as serious.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Nice in theory but you can say the same thing about coins and many other things, such as paperclips. That's why you have to constantly watch kids up to the age of 3, because they just put everything in their mouths. After that age, though, they're expected to pay some attention to parents who tell them 'don't eat that.' If I can teach my dogs not to eat certain things and to stop eating anything when I tell them, other people can certainly teach that to their kids. Risk management is great but what you're describing is risk phobia, which irrationally demands the whole world should be as safe as a kindergarten and that people should have to get special permission to undertake any risk whatsoever.

jemfinch 10y ago

No doubt the injuries are horrifying, but so are fireworks-related burns and gunshot wounds. It's hard to imagine a world where neodymium magnets should be more regulated than fireworks and firearms, but that's the world we lived in before the 10th circuit vacated the CPSC's regulatory overreach.

DanBC 10y ago
We don't sell fireworks nor guns to children. (At least, in the UK we don't). The magnet companies sold these items as a toy to children and resisted efforts to put warnings on them and resisted efforts to stop them being sold to children.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  On the contrary, Buckyballs was never marketed to children, and had clear warnings all over them. They were still pushed into closure by the CPSC. Even after they were clearly marked "Keep Away From All Children". If we can't sell things to adults because they're dangerous to children, we might as well close... well, all hardware stores.
  - clarkevans 10y ago
    Hardware stores have mostly uninteresting tools -- Buckyballs are toys.
    - zardo 10y ago
      >Hardware stores have mostly uninteresting tools My nephews don't think tools or random bits of hardware are uninteresting. I certainly didn't either. If you're of a mind to play, the world is nothing but toys.
      - DanBC 10y ago
        Some adults will let their children use power tools. They'll make sure there's the discussion about safety, they'll do a bit of supervision. They'll hopefully include safety glasses. Everyone knows a drill is dangerous. No-one just hands a hammer drill to a six year old and leaves them to it. The regulator's point about the magnets is that the manufacturers didn't manage to stop them being sold in toy shops to children, and that even with the warnings parents were giving them to children as toys. And, even compared to random bits of hardware store: if you swallow a nail you're probably going to be ok. If you swallow magnets you're probably going to need medical help.
        dpark 10y ago
        > if you swallow a nail you're probably going to be ok. As long as you're okay with sepsis from a perforated intestine, then sure.
        DanBC 10y ago
        No, in most cases the child is going to be fine. This is exactly the point - swallowing a nail is a bad idea but is unlikely to cause significant harm. Swallowing a magnet doesn't look as bad as swallowing a nail (the magnets are smooth and shiny, sometimes round, and very small), but the consequences are usually worse.
        dpark 10y ago
        I'm not sure I believe that. Depending on the size of the nail and how sharp it is, it could pass through, but could also puncture something along the way or get lodged. If a child swallows anything larger than a dime, the standard recommendation is to seek medical attention.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    > Buckyballs was never marketed to children, The first warning label on Buckyballs said 13+. Anyone under 18 is a child.
    - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
      By most conventional definitions, 13+ is a teen. Apparently, in 2010, Congress extended the definition of "child" up to age 14[0], and the CPSC started their complaint on that one year differential. And Buckyballs, for example, changed their notice then to "Keep Away From All Children" and agreed not to sell them at stores like Toys R Us. Two years later from them voluntarily making those changes, the CPSC sued them and sequentially drove them out of business. The facts fall staunchly in opposition to your comments suggesting that they were resistant to applying warning labels, and actively trying to market them to children. This is why all of your comments stating such are downvoted into the grey. One of your other comments claims all the CPSC wanted was warnings, but the reality is that the CPSC worked to drive these companies out of business after all of the warnings were present. [0] http://gizmodo.com/how-buckyballs-fell-apart-1609183224 http://gizmodo.com/how-buckyballs-fell-apart-1609183224
- jemfinch 10y ago
  > The magnet companies sold these items as a toy to children and resisted efforts to put warnings on them and resisted efforts to stop them being sold to children. That's categorically false.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    > That's categorically false. No it's not. This submission is about one company resisting the regulatory action created when buckyballs continued to sell the product to 14 year olds, even though they knew teenagers were among the > 1000 children hospitalised by these magnets.
    - jontas 10y ago
      Do you have anything to back up this claim? I worked intimately with these companies and saw nothing of the sort.
    - burfog 10y ago
      There are places, not just in the 3rd world, where a 14-year-old can get married or drive a vehicle or have a gun. These are not children.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      Dan you're being wildly untruthful here. Buckyballs were sold with very clear warnings and it is not their fault if people ignore those warnings. Are you really trying to argue that a 14 year old is so overcome by the overwhelming desire to experience magnetic forces that s/he is unable to read a warning label, and the only sensible course of action is to halt all sales of the product? Come off it.
      - DanBC 10y ago
        This submission is not about buckyballs, but buckyballs and zenmagnets worked hard to resist the efforts of the regulators. The warnings you talk about on buckyballs did not say "adults only", they said "13+". It is dishonest to suggest that buckyballs didn't sell to children and to say that buckyballs included warnings about not selling to children when the warnings said 13+. > Are you really trying to argue that a 14 year old is so overcome by the overwhelming desire to experience magnetic forces that s/he is unable to read a warning label That's what happened, yes. Children are by definition fucking idiots. That's why we don't let them drive; drink alcohol; vote; run for office; enter into contracts; join the military; live by themselves; get married; have sex; etc. >, and the only sensible course of action is to halt all sales of the product? Come off it. I'm saying we tried warning labels. Parents and children and toy stores ignored those warnings, and children ended up hospitalised as a result. The manufacturers resisted attempts to strengthen the warnings; regulators were forced into issuing a ban because soft-touch regulation failed. The manufacturers brought this upon themselves by not controlling their supply chain properly and by resisting better clearer warnings.
- mibbiting 10y ago
  I bought some years ago, and had fun playing with them with my children. If you need a warning saying that eating a magnet is dangerous, you're not very clever. And if your child (Lets say over the age of 3) is still eating random non-food items without checking with you, then you're not doing a great parenting job. Don't you think the whole "put a warning sticker on everything" is getting a bit ridiculous?
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    I believe that most people would probably assume that it's similar to eating a coin or other small piece of non-sharp metal -- it's not good, but it's generally not potentially life-threatening. If you spend a little bit of time thinking about how strong magnets can probably attract each other through internal tissue, the risk makes sense, but it doesn't seem like something that's obvious, at least not to me. This is one circumstance where awareness/warning labels are really useful, but unfortunately we hear so many frivolous warnings people are not likely to take them seriously. Everyone should know that these contraptions were literally banned at one point for the risk they pose to children, and the disclaimers encountered are not just generic CYA, but representative of a real risk to small children that has a real body count. Like the GP, I'm glad that these are legal in the United States again, but we should not take the issue of informing parents of the risk involved with these toy-like objects lightly. A similar issue is being posed by the small watch batteries included in many children's toys and remote controls these days. Children swallow these and they burn holes in their organs that result in serious disabilities. It's important that parents be aware of such non-obvious environmental dangers.
    - cmiles74 10y ago
      Small watch batteries are an interesting example, I don't recall seeing any warning stickers on these toys or their packaging. Perhaps something is buried in the back of an instruction manual, but that would be obviously ineffective.
      - mibbiting 10y ago
- CapitalistCartr 10y ago
  I bought some. They were clearly labeled and clearly not marketed to children. I don't know where you're getting your magnets; perhaps a boot sale?
  - DanBC 10y ago
    The reason you bought yours with a warning label on and not as a toy for children is because the regulators forced that to happen.
    - snowwrestler 10y ago
      Not many people are going to object to that type of regulatory intervention. Labels are fine. It was the outright ban that pissed people off.
      - DanBC 10y ago
        But the labels failed; the restriction of sales failed; and some of the companies were resisting better labelling and tighter controls over sales. This was the first court case CPSC took in 13 years to force a recall. That doesn't sound like an out of control regulator.
    - zeveb 10y ago
      And American regulators tried to ban importation altogether. That's what this story is about. Regulators & regulations aren't an unmitigated good. They can be better than their lack, or they can be worse.
    - CapitalistCartr 10y ago
      Which the customers, nanufacturers, and retailers all support. Its the regulators who object, claiming only banning is acceptable.
- tn13 10y ago
  Magnet companies do not benefit when a child dies. On the contrary it can put all their business at total risk. Magnet companies are more likely to care about their customers than government caring about my child. > We don't sell fireworks nor guns to children. UK is not a good example because they dont even sell hardware tools to kids. That is simply wussyfication of the society.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    > On the contrary it can put all their business at total risk. ...mostly by regulation, right? I mean – we can all hope that all parent read about all accidents that kill people and then independently come to the smart conclusion, including a level-headed appreciation of the risk, normalized within the background context and the market penetration of ultra-strong magnets... or – better idea – let's put some smart people in a room and let them make a recommendation. There's even a staunchly capitalistic argument for regulation: it's the only reason we trust food from a supermarket we've never visited before, or a new toy, or an online bank, or a really fast looking electric car from California made by this guy who mostly deals in explosions controlled by 400,000 mechanical parts all supplied by the lowest bidder. In other words: Regulation creates the trust that's essential for any economic activity.
    - tn13 10y ago
      > ...mostly by regulation, right? Mostly by bad reviews, lawsuites and bad PR. One good example of this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide While everyone thinks that it was an evil pharma that should have stopped by regulators it appears that the pharma company lost billions but saved by regulators instead. >we can all hope that all parent read about all accidents that kill people and then independently come to the smart conclusion Neither parent not bureaucrats can do that 100% correctly. Parents can do it infinitely better that the people in washington. Babies will die no matter what. > let's put some smart people in a room and let them make a recommendation. Like smart people deciding on housing loans, student loans, cheaper healthcare, invasion of Iraq ? It eventually snowballs into a giant problem that makes the original problem far less worse. Smart people do not possess the intelligence or information to make decisions for others.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  The magnet companies sold these items as a toy to children and resisted efforts to put warnings on them and resisted efforts to stop them being sold to children. This is just not true. I bought a lot of Buckyballs (a brand of magnet) before they were taken off sale and they had very clear and prominent warnings on them which I read and took seriously because I am an adult. Neither I nor the manufacturer are responsible for people who won't do that. Now maybe you can cite a manufacturer in the UK who showed disregard for such regulation, but we're talking about a regulatory body in the US which insisted on taking products off sale even though the manufacturers were fully compliant with the regulatory demands. Please stick within the factual context.
slg 10y ago
Those examples are obviously dangerous while magnets are not. A parent is going to leave their 2 year old playing with a loaded gun, but they might leave them to play with a bunch of magnets without realizing the danger.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  That's what warning labels are for. A policy of banning any product for which the general public isn't fully informed of the dangers is a policy which prevents the public from becoming aware of dangers and mitigating them. ("A week ago there was no acceptable warning, no acceptable age, no sales restriction nor waiver that allowed production of magnets like Zen Magnets, Buckyballs, Neoballs, Magnicube or Neocubes.") Also, there are no warning labels on balloons, much less are they banned, but, as the OP points out, balloons are the #1 cause of child suffocation. It's clear here that these rules aren't being made based on any sensible cost-benefit regulatory consideration, they are just putting unnecessary burdens on new products and grandfathering in the old ones because this is the path of least blame/resistance.
  - evan_ 10y ago
    There actually are warning labels on balloons, plastic bags, and the like warning of suffocation/choking hazard.
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      Sorry, yes, I should have said "Warning labels aren't mandated for balloons...". For instance, the first result for "balloons" on amazon doesn't show any warning labels on the exterior package or the front of the interior bag. https://smile.amazon.com/Kings-Deal-10color-Latex-Balloons/dp/B00KJHCU2U https://smile.amazon.com/Kings-Deal-10color-Latex-Balloons/d... (Maybe it's in small type on the back?) EDIT: Was able to find this PDF, which says that latex balloons must be labeled if they are intended for children under 12. But presumably nothing is required if intended for adults. http://mohawkglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/labeling-childrens-products.pdf http://mohawkglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/labeling-...
Pica_soO 10y ago
You dont see the wound. Your kid has tummy ache. Then a slight fever. Then a strong fever. Then a whole body inflammation and exitus-experience. Parents can be quite ignorant of this. I had a broken appendix as kid, and was already drifting out of the world, when my parents finally decided to get a doctor. Interior wounds are not visible until it is over. Still magnets are awesome.
- ar0b 10y ago
  I wonder how an MRI would turn out in this scenario.
  - ars 10y ago
    An MRI would pull the magnet through the body. That would make quite the horrible wound. But no doctor would order an MRI first, physical examination then one or two X rays first would be standard.

dpark 10y ago

They should definitely be labeled clearly because they present real danger. However, there are far stronger magnets that pose an equal or worse danger that are for sale home stores, craft stores, and grocery stores across the country. There's nothing about these little magnets that make them worse than button magnets except for negligent adults.

DanBC 10y ago
> There's nothing about these little magnets that make them worse than button magnets except for negligent adults. When you buy an item marketed and sold as a toy you have a reasonable expectation that it's not going to cause the death of your child.
- dpark 10y ago
  You mean like silly putty or the thousands of other toys that present choking hazards to children? All toys are not appropriate for all children. I wouldn't give my daughter magnets to play with. I also wouldn't give her silly putty or dice or a chemistry set. She's too young. Eventually she can have all these things and a gallon of bleach under her bathroom sink. But not for quite a while.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    But eating small amounts of silly putty isn't going to kill me, and there's no reason to eat silly putty, and it's quite unpleasant tasting. These magnet companies knew that teenagers were using the magnets for fake piercing jewellery. They knew there was a risk that young people were eating the jewellery, and they resisted putting warnings on the packs and resisted moving the product off toy shelves.
    - dpark 10y ago
      > But eating small amounts of silly putty isn't going to kill me But choking on a wad of silly putty definitely can. Hence the fact that it's labeled as a choking hazard and not for young children. I don't think the bar for "should be banned" is "small amounts are dangerous". A "small amount" of Scrabble can kill your kid, despite there being "no reason" to eat Scrabble tiles, but we don't ban it. Toy stores sell balloons and jacks and dice and all kinds of things that pose real dangers to kids. > These magnet companies knew that teenagers were using the magnets for fake piercing jewellery. Shrug? Car manufacturers know teens are racing cars and snowboard manufacturers know teens are riding down black diamonds with little skill and no helmets. Teens do stupid things and we don't ban entire categories of product to attempt to protect them from minor dangers. > * they resisted putting warnings on the packs and resisted moving the product off toy shelves.* Did they actually resist labeling them or just resist the ban? If they resisted labeling, that's pointless and dumb and it's perfectly reasonable that they be required to label clearly and appropriately.

rhinoceraptor 10y ago

It seems like an easy way to prevent that is clearly marking the packaging (which they did), and to package them in a good case so that the user can easily tell if any of the magnets are missing when they are put away.

komali2 10y ago

Well, that's nice to have the same exact warning here in the comments that the article has, but I'm not sure it's necessary?

tptacek 10y ago

There were also incidents involving teenagers using them as jewelry.

bryondowd 10y ago
Any links or further explanation? Tried searching myself, but not enough to really go on. Couldn't think (specifically) how wearing them as jewelry could go wrong.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Sorry, as lip jewelry. It was in the CPSC filings.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    I remember this from when they were first banned. But I just fail to see how it's the manufacturer's fault when they say 'don't do this, it's a really bad idea' and people just do it anyway. I know teenagers do stupid things, and that they're more likely to do stupid things in the name of fashion. I'm old enough to recall the 1980s when body art first took off and it became cool for guys to wear earrings without being a pirate or a gypsy. I pierced my own ears around this time, despite being warned about everything from the risk of infection to the possibility of illness by hitting an acupuncture point (a risk what was inexplicably not assumed to be true for girls). Well not only did I end up with holes in my ears but over a the years they did get infected on a few occasions when I didn't clean my earrings properly, and I had to clean out a small but painful and gross cyst. None of this is the fault of the people who manufacture earrings. No results yet on the acupuncture danger but after 30 years I'm beginning to think that warning may have been misplaced.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      I'm pretty ambivalent about this whole issue, but would like to point out that the ban was not on "magnets", but on these particular magnets when packaged and marketed as toys. There's a reason the CPSC banned lawn darts but not blowtorches or medical sharps or the safety pin you probably used to pierce your ear. There's not much ambiguity about the dangerous things the CPSC doesn't care about. But you can't say that about the magnets, which cause truly horrible medical calamities that most ordinary people do not expect. Also, not sure if we were just hiding on different ends of HN or whatever, but it's good to bump into you again!

xutopia 10y ago

My kids knew not to put just about anything in their mouths by the time they had the fine motor skills required to pick up one of the magnets.

onion2k 10y ago
You should be thankful that you were fortunate enough to have children bright enough to learn that lesson early in life, and who are capable of abstraction without direct experience. Other people's children don't pick up those skills until quite a lot later. The implication of what you're saying is that you think the children of parents who don't teach them this important lesson early enough should be allowed to die. That's an incredibly harsh outlook.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Unless and until we limit childbearing to people of proven competence - hardly a desirable goal - then that's the outcome we have to accept. I'm not willing to live in kindergarten conditions just because some other people are terrible parents.
  - onion2k 10y ago
    I'm not willing to live in kindergarten conditions just because some other people are terrible parents. This isn't about you. This is about people who don't know what you know. In this case you understand the danger so you think the warnings are an unnecessary insult to your intelligence because you find them obvious. You're ignoring the people out there who don't understand the danger. Imagine a situation where your child came in to contact with something you know nothing about - you'd want information right there in front of you printed on the side, even if someone else who has experience and knowledge about the thing thought that warning was ridiculous. The suggestion that we should let parents bring dangerous things in to their houses without warnings because they ought to understand the dangers already is utterly ridiculous. The 'kindergarten conditions' you're talking about is having sensible warnings on things. Why would it be better to have empty space, or a marketing message, or a pretty picture where that warning is if the warning could save someones life? It simply isn't, and if you believe it is then you are wrong.

openclosed 10y ago

Ensuring safety at home is the role of parents (where reasonable oversight is enough), not a paternalistic government prone to overreach. If parents themselves are generally too ignorant, then there's a much bigger problem. (Odd that someone used a downvote on this.)

tn13 10y ago

Thanks for pointing out the threat. It was not immediately clear to me why anyone would ban magnets. I hope people who make toys out of those come up with clever ways to educate parents about their danger.

lvs 10y ago

There are many things your kids shouldn't eat. Like a bottle of bleach or my circular saw. We don't need to ban them all. That's really too silly.

bunderbunder 10y ago
Bleach and circular saws don't happen to look exactly like a certain kind of candy (dragees). This is fairly subtle issue, and strawman analogies add nothing of value to the conversation.
- lvs 10y ago
  Yes, but the switch on my saw looks just like a fun red pushable button, and my bleach looks like a milk bottle. It isn't a straw man. The question is how ultra-safe you'd like your society to be. My argument is that we have dangers all around, and some acceptable and reasonable risk must be associated with living. And it's unavoidable to boot. The society that believes that cushioning every corner eliminates daily risks is living a lie. The trouble is that if you say that banning magnets is reasonable, nobody listens to you when you tell them that banning the sale of automatic weapons should also be. You're crying wolf with the damn magnets. There are bigger fish to fry!
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  It's not subtle at all. Why are we protecting candy manufacturers who make candy that resembles ball bearings? Most likely for no other reason than that we have been used to such novelty candy since we were kids ourselves, and somehow learned to distinguish between candy and actual ball bearings so as not to eat the latter. Why are we expected to believe that adults can't tell the difference between candy and powerful magnets just because they're both shiny and metallic-looking? Why are the very clear warnings supplied with the product somehow unreadable in the face of their shiny roundness?

CamperBob2 10y ago

So, require them to be sold with warning labels. Problem solved.

oneplane 10y ago

Sure thing, but everything is dangerous if you let kids eat them. Imagine your kids drinking bleach because it looks like lemonade. Or sitting on the stove because it's nice and warm. Or eating bees because they are nice and fuzzy. Or eating batteries because they ace small and shiny. Or eating the buttons off of their shirts, which then may be brittle, break inside their bodies and puncture something. Or what about sitting behind a door and someone then opening that door, hitting them just the wrong way causing permanent blindness... It's just strange that people seem to want to point at super specific things and say: "those are inherently dangerous!" We could agree that oxygen is dangerous because it reacts with almost anything. Does that mean we're going to have oxygen banned? :p

codingdave 10y ago
Apply the standard risk management quadrants -- magnets are small and easy to swallow, so the likelihood of an incident is high if magnets exist in toys. The consequence is emergency medical interventions, which is also high. So it falls into the worst quadrant. Many of the other things you mentioned have either a lower likelihood, or lower consequence, so they are not as serious.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Nice in theory but you can say the same thing about coins and many other things, such as paperclips. That's why you have to constantly watch kids up to the age of 3, because they just put everything in their mouths. After that age, though, they're expected to pay some attention to parents who tell them 'don't eat that.' If I can teach my dogs not to eat certain things and to stop eating anything when I tell them, other people can certainly teach that to their kids. Risk management is great but what you're describing is risk phobia, which irrationally demands the whole world should be as safe as a kindergarten and that people should have to get special permission to undertake any risk whatsoever.