I looked up the info on the CPSC website myself: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml12/12037.html http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml12/12037.html

I looked up the info on the CPSC website myself: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml12/12037.html http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml12/12037.html >Reports of incidents involving these high-powered ball-bearing magnets have increased since 2009. Specifically, CPSC received one incident report in 2009, seven in 2010 and 14 through October 2011. These 22 incidents have involved children ranging in age from 18 months to 15 years old. Of the reported incidents, 17 involved magnet ingestion and 11 required surgical removal of the magnets. When a magnet has to be removed surgically, it often requires the repair of the child's damaged stomach and intestines. Hardly 1700 emergency room visits. Edit: I think this focus on the numbers is silly. One incident is too many, and even if no children had ever been harmed it would still be important to properly educate the people about the dangers of the product. But I do believe that a wholesale ban is using a shotgun as a flyswatter. It doesn't solve the root problem (uneducated parents or inattentive parenting). Why not focus on making sure the public informed about the dangers of all kinds of products that could potentially harm their children, rather than trying to ban them one by one? It just seems like the wrong way to go about this.