5 ms·

CEO Fights Feds: Save Our Balls

43 points by sbjustin 14y ago

sbjustin 14y ago
http://www.getbuckyballs.com/buckyballs-only-marketed-to-adults-cpsc-press-release/ http://www.getbuckyballs.com/buckyballs-only-marketed-to-adu...
- tptacek 14y ago
  This article contradicts itself, or is overtly intending to mislead its audience; the article itself points out that the product is marketed 14+. The problem isn't that 14 year olds will swallow magnets --- although they might, since CPSC tracks reports of them being used to hold fake piercings. The problem is that 14 year olds often cohabitate with 2 year olds, and 14 year olds aren't renowned for judgement and organizational skills.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
It is symptomatic of a larger problem, the inability to characterize risk coupled with the demand for action. Some characterize it as a tragedy of the commons, personally I agree with Schneir that its simply bad parenting and bad luck.
tptacek 14y ago
This came up a few weeks ago on HN. Not to express any opinion about the regulatory action happening here, but you might be surprised to learn that you could be better off swallowing a nail than you would be if you swallowed a pair of these tiny magnets. Swallowing the magnets is a big deal. As they transit your system, they can easily find themselves on either side of a fold of tissue, whereupon they lock together, gradually kill the tissue, leak gut bacteria into the bloodstream and create sepsis. On the other hand, if you swallow a nail, there is apparently a very good chance that your doctor will just tell you to go home and look for it in your poop. This according to a journal article I found last time the story came up. Worse still, the risks are deceptive. As a parent, you would no doubt freak out completely if you discovered your toddler ate a nail. I know I'd be at the emergency room minutes later. On the other hand, parents are routinely told by their doctors to wait and watch the poop when other innocuous round objects are swallowed. It is very easy to see how parents could make the wrong call about the magnets and wind up with gravely ill children as a result. --- More things you might want to know about the CPSC complaint: * Despite warnings, there've been numerous continuous incidents of kids needing surgery after ingesting the magnets. * The magnets are marketed to kids 14 years and up; there are apparently lots of reports of teenagers using the magnets to hold jewelry for e.g. fake lip piercings. * When you sell tiny rare earth magnets to teenagers, it is awfully hard to ensure that those magnets don't end up in the GI tracts of little kids that share a house with those teenagers. * Warning labels for this suck because the product practically demands to be taken out of packaging; once you assemble a structure with them, it's not like you break them back up and put them in a box. * Little kids love these things, because they're shiny, they click, and they move in unexpected ways. The CPSC wants the death penalty for this product. I'm not there with them, but I see where they're coming from.
- marcamillion 14y ago
  Yikes! I imagine there must be a better way to solve this issue than by shutting down the entire company.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Definitely agree.
  - mechanical_fish 14y ago
    I would imagine that one might be able to continue selling these magnets via, say, a mail-order laboratory-supply store that caters to school science labs. Such stores carry lots of products that are dangerous in counterintuitive ways: http://wardsci.com/product.asp?pn=IG0015551 http://wardsci.com/product.asp?pn=IG0015551 Don't get the sodium metal wet or feed it after midnight! But such products also aren't labeled like toys, or stocked in storefronts that also sell toys. They are labeled like industrial products and ship with MSDS sheets. The problem is that killing the existing sales channels will likely kill the existing business, because the sales volume will drop by orders of magnitude.
- Inufu 14y ago
  If people are retarded, it's hardly the fault of that company, is it? You don't blame the gun company when somebody shoots himself ...
  - mynameishere 14y ago
    If you know anything about small children, they like to pick up stuff off the ground and eat it. I had these in my office and was constantly losing them on the floor. Now, if you do that at a house with kids... Also, a stupid person eating them probably won't eat them in that pattern, finding one by accident, then another an hour later after the first has advanced through the system ahead of the second, which is how the flesh gets pinched eventually.
    - Inufu 14y ago
bigtech 14y ago
from the CPSC press release: Since 2009, CPSC staff has learned of more than two dozen ingestion incidents, with at least one dozen involving Buckyballs. Surgery was required in many of incidents. The Commission staff alleges in its complaint that it has concluded that despite the attempts to warn purchasers, warnings and education are ineffective and cannot prevent injuries and incidents with these rare earth magnets.
- Foy 14y ago
  TL;DR - Americans are too stupid to handle magnets safely. Therefore we have to ban this product.
  - jaaron 14y ago
    I can see both sides of the argument. The case for personal responsibility is strong, but I can also see the case that this product is deceptively dangerous, i.e.- it resembles many other non-dangerous products, leading to easy consumer confusion, when in fact it is particularly dangerous. Not many other toys carry a risk of _surgery_. But all of that aside, my issue is that the CEO doesn't seem to be particularly sympathetic to a product which has hurt his customers. I'm sure I don't have the whole story, but the impression is that the CEO's attitude is one of "well, we warned you, what more do you want?" rather concern for safety and taking creative action to protect customers.
hellosamdwyer 14y ago
One would imagine that the Obama team would want this story to die ASAP. Pick up the phone! Let my buckies go!
caycep 14y ago
what does obama have to do w/ this?
- gee_totes 14y ago
  I think he's there because this is a Fox News link.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    The CEO put out full page ad calling for Obama to do something. That has nothing to do with Fox News. The ABC News article also referenced that fact. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/buckyballs-maker-appeals-to-obama-for-help/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/buckyballs-make... http://www.getbuckyballs.com/blog/2012/08/open-letter-to-president-obama/ http://www.getbuckyballs.com/blog/2012/08/open-letter-to-pre... [Edited to remove the snark and just stick to the facts. Sorry for angering the HN gods.]
- elarkin 14y ago
  Not a lot, though as the head of the executive branch he could likely intervene to prevent the ban.
  - DerekL 14y ago
    No, he can't. The CPSC is an independent agency, run by five commissioners. The president nominates the commissioners, but he can't give them orders or fire them without cause.
- kevinpet 14y ago
  The CPSC is part of the executive branch. The president is in charge of the executive branch, and the only elected member of the executive branch. Who else should he be petitioning?
sp332 14y ago
Discussion on the ban 2 weeks ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4294041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4294041
temphn 14y ago
There are about 10000 things that are toxic if swallowed. Household cleaning supplies, toothpicks, you name it. Warnings do nothing, the kinds of people or children who swallow them aren't going to be reading warnings. The paradoxical thing is that the complete abandonment of personal responsibility (no parent is responsible for watching their child) is coupled with a requirement that the business owner assume superhuman levels of responsibility (devising his product in such a way that it is bad-parent-proof).
bksenior 14y ago
It was alluded to in the comments, but how is this worse than steak knives, time locking doors, things with exposed wires or any other dangerous objects?
- Dramatize 14y ago
  A kid can't swallow a steak knife.
j_baker 14y ago
You know, I really have to question the author's credibility. The blurb at the bottom says: Todd is the author of “Dispatches From Bitter America.” The book is endorsed by Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and Sean Hannity. Click here to get your copy. ...which leads me to believe this is more political than a case of really wanting to save Bucky Balls. For example, notice how the article is almost exclusively dedicated to the CEO, while the "victim" only gets half a sentence?
- kevinpet 14y ago
  You don't share his politics, so therefore you disregard everything he has to say? I'm pretty sure this article is about the CEO. You know, since it starts off talking about his letter? I envy your ability to instantly and accurately decide every controversy merely by learning the political affiliations of the parties.
  - j_baker 14y ago
    How exactly does "question the author's credibility" translate into "disregard everything he has to say"? Regardless of the author's political affiliations, I seriously doubt that his writing appealed to the likes of the people like Sarah Palin by being sane, rational, and thoughtful. I mean, sure, there's a good chance he's really an intelligent and respectable guy, but I think the simplest answer is that he's a political shill and has no credibility. And that's the answer I'll stick to until I see evidence that I'm wrong.
    - snowwrestler 14y ago
      Why would it matter if he is intelligent, respectable, or shilling? If he told you it was raining, would you look him up on Open Secrets before you grabbed your umbrella?
      - j_baker 14y ago
        No, but I would definitely look up at the sky to see if it was raining before believing him. I only believe weather conditions that are given to me by people who are intelligent, respectable non-shills.
msg 14y ago
I was in the gift shop at the Pacific Science Center (Seattle) two months ago. The Buckyball demo video was playing on the corner of the sales counter, surrounded by the other science toys and kits that the museum sells. So I feel this claim of "marketing to adults" is somewhat disingenuous.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  When I was in high school there was a gas station on the edge of town that was very relaxed about the legal age for purchasing cigarettes. But I never blamed Camel for that. ;)
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Camel's marketing of cigarettes to children is a huge issue.
    - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
      I happened to smoke Camel's back then so that is the brand I stated in my tale. But my friend smoked some nasty unknown clove crap he also purchased at this gas station. My point was that you can't always blame the manufacturer for how the product is placed/sold/controlled once it reaches the retailer. When I worked at a convenient store in college, we set up the displays and put up the window posters... not some company rep or anything. I would never expect all the different suppliers to come by every time we switched stuff around to make sure their product was not too close to the candy aisle. So I would not expect the Bucky Balls people to go to every retailer to make sure they are not selling them to kids. That is just not a reasonable expectation to have.
      - msg 14y ago
        I don't think this is about "blaming the manufacturer" for the behavior of retailers. My anecdata is that they distributed their product to the gift shop of what is, overall, a kid and preteen museum. For adults, there is a King Tut exhibit and an IMAX theater, segregated from the rest. The main flow has animatronic dinosaurs, a bug house, a tide pool, a bunch of touchable exhibits. Kids come through on field trips. So this product is wrong for that retailer. There was probably no location in the store that would have kept it from being seen and wanted by kids. Maybe the Buckyballs guys will say, "hey my hands were tied, I couldn't do that level of due diligence with every store I sell my product to." And the regulator will respond, "hey my hands were tied, I couldn't allow the product to be sold without that level of diligence." That doesn't mean that regulator is somehow being unfair to Buckyballs. It means the laws of physics are being unfair to Buckyballs for not allowing them to create a cool sticky product without health risks to children. Yes, there's a certain amount of proportion that needs to be taken. Yes, more kids die from drowning in backyard pools. But it's not unreasonable to ask that these products (like cigarettes, like prescription drugs) are more difficult for children to acquire at retail.
rdl 14y ago
Would these be vastly less fun if they were bigger, and thus a lot less likely to be swallowed? 1" diameter rare earth magnets would be pretty fun I think, although maybe more dangerous (due to being stronger)?

43 points by sbjustin 14y ago

http://www.getbuckyballs.com/buckyballs-only-marketed-to-adults-cpsc-press-release/ http://www.getbuckyballs.com/buckyballs-only-marketed-to-adu...

tptacek 14y ago
This article contradicts itself, or is overtly intending to mislead its audience; the article itself points out that the product is marketed 14+. The problem isn't that 14 year olds will swallow magnets --- although they might, since CPSC tracks reports of them being used to hold fake piercings. The problem is that 14 year olds often cohabitate with 2 year olds, and 14 year olds aren't renowned for judgement and organizational skills.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

It is symptomatic of a larger problem, the inability to characterize risk coupled with the demand for action. Some characterize it as a tragedy of the commons, personally I agree with Schneir that its simply bad parenting and bad luck.

tptacek 14y ago

This came up a few weeks ago on HN. Not to express any opinion about the regulatory action happening here, but you might be surprised to learn that you could be better off swallowing a nail than you would be if you swallowed a pair of these tiny magnets. Swallowing the magnets is a big deal. As they transit your system, they can easily find themselves on either side of a fold of tissue, whereupon they lock together, gradually kill the tissue, leak gut bacteria into the bloodstream and create sepsis. On the other hand, if you swallow a nail, there is apparently a very good chance that your doctor will just tell you to go home and look for it in your poop. This according to a journal article I found last time the story came up. Worse still, the risks are deceptive. As a parent, you would no doubt freak out completely if you discovered your toddler ate a nail. I know I'd be at the emergency room minutes later. On the other hand, parents are routinely told by their doctors to wait and watch the poop when other innocuous round objects are swallowed. It is very easy to see how parents could make the wrong call about the magnets and wind up with gravely ill children as a result. --- More things you might want to know about the CPSC complaint: * Despite warnings, there've been numerous continuous incidents of kids needing surgery after ingesting the magnets. * The magnets are marketed to kids 14 years and up; there are apparently lots of reports of teenagers using the magnets to hold jewelry for e.g. fake lip piercings. * When you sell tiny rare earth magnets to teenagers, it is awfully hard to ensure that those magnets don't end up in the GI tracts of little kids that share a house with those teenagers. * Warning labels for this suck because the product practically demands to be taken out of packaging; once you assemble a structure with them, it's not like you break them back up and put them in a box. * Little kids love these things, because they're shiny, they click, and they move in unexpected ways. The CPSC wants the death penalty for this product. I'm not there with them, but I see where they're coming from.

marcamillion 14y ago
Yikes! I imagine there must be a better way to solve this issue than by shutting down the entire company.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Definitely agree.
- mechanical_fish 14y ago
  I would imagine that one might be able to continue selling these magnets via, say, a mail-order laboratory-supply store that caters to school science labs. Such stores carry lots of products that are dangerous in counterintuitive ways: http://wardsci.com/product.asp?pn=IG0015551 http://wardsci.com/product.asp?pn=IG0015551 Don't get the sodium metal wet or feed it after midnight! But such products also aren't labeled like toys, or stocked in storefronts that also sell toys. They are labeled like industrial products and ship with MSDS sheets. The problem is that killing the existing sales channels will likely kill the existing business, because the sales volume will drop by orders of magnitude.
Inufu 14y ago
If people are retarded, it's hardly the fault of that company, is it? You don't blame the gun company when somebody shoots himself ...
- mynameishere 14y ago
  If you know anything about small children, they like to pick up stuff off the ground and eat it. I had these in my office and was constantly losing them on the floor. Now, if you do that at a house with kids... Also, a stupid person eating them probably won't eat them in that pattern, finding one by accident, then another an hour later after the first has advanced through the system ahead of the second, which is how the flesh gets pinched eventually.
  - Inufu 14y ago

bigtech 14y ago

from the CPSC press release: Since 2009, CPSC staff has learned of more than two dozen ingestion incidents, with at least one dozen involving Buckyballs. Surgery was required in many of incidents. The Commission staff alleges in its complaint that it has concluded that despite the attempts to warn purchasers, warnings and education are ineffective and cannot prevent injuries and incidents with these rare earth magnets.

Foy 14y ago
TL;DR - Americans are too stupid to handle magnets safely. Therefore we have to ban this product.
- jaaron 14y ago
  I can see both sides of the argument. The case for personal responsibility is strong, but I can also see the case that this product is deceptively dangerous, i.e.- it resembles many other non-dangerous products, leading to easy consumer confusion, when in fact it is particularly dangerous. Not many other toys carry a risk of _surgery_. But all of that aside, my issue is that the CEO doesn't seem to be particularly sympathetic to a product which has hurt his customers. I'm sure I don't have the whole story, but the impression is that the CEO's attitude is one of "well, we warned you, what more do you want?" rather concern for safety and taking creative action to protect customers.

hellosamdwyer 14y ago

One would imagine that the Obama team would want this story to die ASAP. Pick up the phone! Let my buckies go!

caycep 14y ago

what does obama have to do w/ this?

gee_totes 14y ago
I think he's there because this is a Fox News link.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  The CEO put out full page ad calling for Obama to do something. That has nothing to do with Fox News. The ABC News article also referenced that fact. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/buckyballs-maker-appeals-to-obama-for-help/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/buckyballs-make... http://www.getbuckyballs.com/blog/2012/08/open-letter-to-president-obama/ http://www.getbuckyballs.com/blog/2012/08/open-letter-to-pre... [Edited to remove the snark and just stick to the facts. Sorry for angering the HN gods.]
elarkin 14y ago
Not a lot, though as the head of the executive branch he could likely intervene to prevent the ban.
- DerekL 14y ago
  No, he can't. The CPSC is an independent agency, run by five commissioners. The president nominates the commissioners, but he can't give them orders or fire them without cause.
kevinpet 14y ago
The CPSC is part of the executive branch. The president is in charge of the executive branch, and the only elected member of the executive branch. Who else should he be petitioning?

sp332 14y ago

Discussion on the ban 2 weeks ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4294041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4294041

temphn 14y ago

There are about 10000 things that are toxic if swallowed. Household cleaning supplies, toothpicks, you name it. Warnings do nothing, the kinds of people or children who swallow them aren't going to be reading warnings. The paradoxical thing is that the complete abandonment of personal responsibility (no parent is responsible for watching their child) is coupled with a requirement that the business owner assume superhuman levels of responsibility (devising his product in such a way that it is bad-parent-proof).

bksenior 14y ago

It was alluded to in the comments, but how is this worse than steak knives, time locking doors, things with exposed wires or any other dangerous objects?

Dramatize 14y ago
A kid can't swallow a steak knife.

j_baker 14y ago

You know, I really have to question the author's credibility. The blurb at the bottom says: Todd is the author of “Dispatches From Bitter America.” The book is endorsed by Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and Sean Hannity. Click here to get your copy. ...which leads me to believe this is more political than a case of really wanting to save Bucky Balls. For example, notice how the article is almost exclusively dedicated to the CEO, while the "victim" only gets half a sentence?

kevinpet 14y ago
You don't share his politics, so therefore you disregard everything he has to say? I'm pretty sure this article is about the CEO. You know, since it starts off talking about his letter? I envy your ability to instantly and accurately decide every controversy merely by learning the political affiliations of the parties.
- j_baker 14y ago
  How exactly does "question the author's credibility" translate into "disregard everything he has to say"? Regardless of the author's political affiliations, I seriously doubt that his writing appealed to the likes of the people like Sarah Palin by being sane, rational, and thoughtful. I mean, sure, there's a good chance he's really an intelligent and respectable guy, but I think the simplest answer is that he's a political shill and has no credibility. And that's the answer I'll stick to until I see evidence that I'm wrong.
  - snowwrestler 14y ago
    Why would it matter if he is intelligent, respectable, or shilling? If he told you it was raining, would you look him up on Open Secrets before you grabbed your umbrella?
    - j_baker 14y ago
      No, but I would definitely look up at the sky to see if it was raining before believing him. I only believe weather conditions that are given to me by people who are intelligent, respectable non-shills.

msg 14y ago

I was in the gift shop at the Pacific Science Center (Seattle) two months ago. The Buckyball demo video was playing on the corner of the sales counter, surrounded by the other science toys and kits that the museum sells. So I feel this claim of "marketing to adults" is somewhat disingenuous.

jack-r-abbit 14y ago
When I was in high school there was a gas station on the edge of town that was very relaxed about the legal age for purchasing cigarettes. But I never blamed Camel for that. ;)
- tptacek 14y ago
  Camel's marketing of cigarettes to children is a huge issue.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    I happened to smoke Camel's back then so that is the brand I stated in my tale. But my friend smoked some nasty unknown clove crap he also purchased at this gas station. My point was that you can't always blame the manufacturer for how the product is placed/sold/controlled once it reaches the retailer. When I worked at a convenient store in college, we set up the displays and put up the window posters... not some company rep or anything. I would never expect all the different suppliers to come by every time we switched stuff around to make sure their product was not too close to the candy aisle. So I would not expect the Bucky Balls people to go to every retailer to make sure they are not selling them to kids. That is just not a reasonable expectation to have.
    - msg 14y ago
      I don't think this is about "blaming the manufacturer" for the behavior of retailers. My anecdata is that they distributed their product to the gift shop of what is, overall, a kid and preteen museum. For adults, there is a King Tut exhibit and an IMAX theater, segregated from the rest. The main flow has animatronic dinosaurs, a bug house, a tide pool, a bunch of touchable exhibits. Kids come through on field trips. So this product is wrong for that retailer. There was probably no location in the store that would have kept it from being seen and wanted by kids. Maybe the Buckyballs guys will say, "hey my hands were tied, I couldn't do that level of due diligence with every store I sell my product to." And the regulator will respond, "hey my hands were tied, I couldn't allow the product to be sold without that level of diligence." That doesn't mean that regulator is somehow being unfair to Buckyballs. It means the laws of physics are being unfair to Buckyballs for not allowing them to create a cool sticky product without health risks to children. Yes, there's a certain amount of proportion that needs to be taken. Yes, more kids die from drowning in backyard pools. But it's not unreasonable to ask that these products (like cigarettes, like prescription drugs) are more difficult for children to acquire at retail.

rdl 14y ago

Would these be vastly less fun if they were bigger, and thus a lot less likely to be swallowed? 1" diameter rare earth magnets would be pretty fun I think, although maybe more dangerous (due to being stronger)?