4 ms·

It's legal to sell guns, muscle cars, whiskey, swords, hydrochloric acid, and fireworks. But magnets? Someone might get hurt!

by oofabz 12y ago

megablast 12y ago
I guess the distinction is that those are clearly not for kids. The complaints comes because of problems that have arisen with kids in the past.
- mnarayan01 12y ago
  Kids have killed themselves with literally all of those. At a significantly higher rate than with buckyballs for most, if not all, of them.
  - goblin89 12y ago
    I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment here, but: This thread brings up many different hazards from our everyday lives and compares them with neodymium magnet toys. Is this a fair comparison? We interact with most of these hazards every day. Any given kid would be educated about electric wires, hot stoves, fire, sharp objects. If not the kid then at least the parent would be educated about the dangers of ingesting bleach or laundry detergent, and so on. Yes, sadly above hazards still cause many deaths, but they also are much more widespread than neodymium magnet toys. Now take our magnets. - They're new and sufficiently rare. Average kid wouldn't know its dangers—average parent doesn't! (Compare to guns, fireworks.) - They're shiny, attractive, and with funny physical properties to boot. Inviting to play. (Compare to hydrochloric acid.) - We're already nearly blind to all the swallowing hazard labels around us. Magnets are awesome and I definitely would buy myself a set, but the controversy doesn't seem to me totally insubstantial.
    - kruczek 12y ago
      Either there is something I don't understand about this whole story, or something is seriously wrong with people coming up with such bans. As far as I could understand the only risk is for children to swallow these magnets? Or is there some other hazard due to them being magnets? If it's only about swallowing, then how is it different from any other object of similar size? If we ban them because they are "new and sufficiently rare", then how is it we don't ban all new products below certain size threshold? Everything is new in the beginning. Same with shiny and attractive, there are many such objects which can be swallowed (e.g. jewlery) and somehow these are not banned.
      - tripzilch 12y ago
        The difference is[0] when you swallow not one, but two of these magnets. They might clonk together from different parts of the intestines and ultimately puncture them. And I'm not entirely convinced about safety rules "below a certain size threshold". For instance, refrigerators are invariably lethal when swallowed whole. [0] just to be clear: I'm not advocating to ban these toys in any country that can safely be trusted to handle Kinder surprise eggs.
      - goblin89 12y ago
        Neither understood I, until I read carefully the copy on zenmagnets.com and found: > Zen Magnets may cause fatal intestinal pinching if swallowed. > Don't leave them around animals, or children who don't understand this. > US Government Age recommendation is 14 years. Then it dawned on me, and I thought that it's actually too mild a warning. What exactly children are expected to understand? that they shouldn't swallow those toys—of course they understand that, it's accidents that everyone's worried about. If I were the business owner, I'd prefer to err on the safe side: “Keep away from children”, “This is not your average swallowing hazard!”, and so on.
  - JamisonM 12y ago
    Actually at a much, much lower rate. Think of how many of those things there are in a single house or neighbourhood and then think of how many child fatalities a typical house or neighbourhood experiences.
- smsm42 12y ago
  A kid can take a knife and stick it into his eye. Or bite into an electric cord. Or drink a bottle of bleach. Or fall into a pool and drown. Or set themselves on fire. All this is readily available and can be done by kids, and unfortunately sometimes is. But nobody bans knives, electricity or bleach or pools or fire. All it took to ban this nice and harmless toy however is one junior senator (Kirsten Gillibrand) looking for a little moral panic. BTW, if somebody is interested, Wikipedia says before going into politics Gillibrand worked as defense attorney for Philip Morris. I guess no problem with harmful substances there.
darklajid 12y ago
Most if the world knows a special "Chocolate egg with toy inside" product and kids tend to love it. But there is a country that thinks kids are going to swallow them wholesale...
- martiuk 12y ago
  It's not a big 'surprise'.
- tripzilch 12y ago
  Well that's what I've been saying! Countries that, self-admittedly, cannot be trusted to safely handle Kinder surprise eggs, probably should stay away from magnets too.
lilsunnybee 12y ago
I'm not usually one to argue for broader safety regulations, but the fear behind the restrictions / banning sales aren't entirely off the wall. I mean look at The Mandala Set that Zen Magnets sells? http://zenmagnets.com/the-mandala-set/ http://zenmagnets.com/the-mandala-set/ How small are those spheres exactly? They look like toys, or candy. Small children love to swallow things, especially small round non-pointy things, and someone's kid dying or merely getting serious lifelong intestinal damage from swallowing small powerful magnets (like neodymium magnets are), due to intestinal pinching, is no joke. It doesn't matter to a kid if the original product came with a warning label or consent form or not. Muscle cars, whiskey, full-size swords, chemicals don't look like toys, and aren't as likely to be played with by especially small children. Small separated magnets, especially any that happened to fall and roll across the floor out of sight, seem like a greater risk to me.
- LocalPCGuy 12y ago
  They should not be played with where any of the things you mention may come into play. Period. People need to be responsible, and it really isn't on the magnet companies to ensure that. Their job is to develop a product and then responsibly label and market it in such a way that people are reasonably informed that these are not for kids. Sorry, I don't buy the "well they look like candy, so gotta protect the kids" argument. The witch hunt for these things is ridiculous, and does not stand up to scrutiny - Dogs are statistically over 120 times more dangerous than Buckyball magnet sets. Should we ban dogs? This is simply a case of someone championing their cause because they can, not because it's the right thing to do.

It's legal to sell guns, muscle cars, whiskey, swords, hydrochloric acid, and fireworks. But magnets? Someone might get hurt!

by oofabz 12y ago

It's legal to sell guns, muscle cars, whiskey, swords, hydrochloric acid, and fireworks. But magnets? Someone might get hurt!

megablast 12y ago

I guess the distinction is that those are clearly not for kids. The complaints comes because of problems that have arisen with kids in the past.

mnarayan01 12y ago
Kids have killed themselves with literally all of those. At a significantly higher rate than with buckyballs for most, if not all, of them.
- goblin89 12y ago
  I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment here, but: This thread brings up many different hazards from our everyday lives and compares them with neodymium magnet toys. Is this a fair comparison? We interact with most of these hazards every day. Any given kid would be educated about electric wires, hot stoves, fire, sharp objects. If not the kid then at least the parent would be educated about the dangers of ingesting bleach or laundry detergent, and so on. Yes, sadly above hazards still cause many deaths, but they also are much more widespread than neodymium magnet toys. Now take our magnets. - They're new and sufficiently rare. Average kid wouldn't know its dangers—average parent doesn't! (Compare to guns, fireworks.) - They're shiny, attractive, and with funny physical properties to boot. Inviting to play. (Compare to hydrochloric acid.) - We're already nearly blind to all the swallowing hazard labels around us. Magnets are awesome and I definitely would buy myself a set, but the controversy doesn't seem to me totally insubstantial.
  - kruczek 12y ago
    Either there is something I don't understand about this whole story, or something is seriously wrong with people coming up with such bans. As far as I could understand the only risk is for children to swallow these magnets? Or is there some other hazard due to them being magnets? If it's only about swallowing, then how is it different from any other object of similar size? If we ban them because they are "new and sufficiently rare", then how is it we don't ban all new products below certain size threshold? Everything is new in the beginning. Same with shiny and attractive, there are many such objects which can be swallowed (e.g. jewlery) and somehow these are not banned.
    - tripzilch 12y ago
      The difference is[0] when you swallow not one, but two of these magnets. They might clonk together from different parts of the intestines and ultimately puncture them. And I'm not entirely convinced about safety rules "below a certain size threshold". For instance, refrigerators are invariably lethal when swallowed whole. [0] just to be clear: I'm not advocating to ban these toys in any country that can safely be trusted to handle Kinder surprise eggs.
    - goblin89 12y ago
      Neither understood I, until I read carefully the copy on zenmagnets.com and found: > Zen Magnets may cause fatal intestinal pinching if swallowed. > Don't leave them around animals, or children who don't understand this. > US Government Age recommendation is 14 years. Then it dawned on me, and I thought that it's actually too mild a warning. What exactly children are expected to understand? that they shouldn't swallow those toys—of course they understand that, it's accidents that everyone's worried about. If I were the business owner, I'd prefer to err on the safe side: “Keep away from children”, “This is not your average swallowing hazard!”, and so on.
- JamisonM 12y ago
  Actually at a much, much lower rate. Think of how many of those things there are in a single house or neighbourhood and then think of how many child fatalities a typical house or neighbourhood experiences.
smsm42 12y ago
A kid can take a knife and stick it into his eye. Or bite into an electric cord. Or drink a bottle of bleach. Or fall into a pool and drown. Or set themselves on fire. All this is readily available and can be done by kids, and unfortunately sometimes is. But nobody bans knives, electricity or bleach or pools or fire. All it took to ban this nice and harmless toy however is one junior senator (Kirsten Gillibrand) looking for a little moral panic. BTW, if somebody is interested, Wikipedia says before going into politics Gillibrand worked as defense attorney for Philip Morris. I guess no problem with harmful substances there.

darklajid 12y ago

Most if the world knows a special "Chocolate egg with toy inside" product and kids tend to love it. But there is a country that thinks kids are going to swallow them wholesale...

martiuk 12y ago
It's not a big 'surprise'.
tripzilch 12y ago
Well that's what I've been saying! Countries that, self-admittedly, cannot be trusted to safely handle Kinder surprise eggs, probably should stay away from magnets too.

lilsunnybee 12y ago

I'm not usually one to argue for broader safety regulations, but the fear behind the restrictions / banning sales aren't entirely off the wall. I mean look at The Mandala Set that Zen Magnets sells? http://zenmagnets.com/the-mandala-set/ http://zenmagnets.com/the-mandala-set/ How small are those spheres exactly? They look like toys, or candy. Small children love to swallow things, especially small round non-pointy things, and someone's kid dying or merely getting serious lifelong intestinal damage from swallowing small powerful magnets (like neodymium magnets are), due to intestinal pinching, is no joke. It doesn't matter to a kid if the original product came with a warning label or consent form or not. Muscle cars, whiskey, full-size swords, chemicals don't look like toys, and aren't as likely to be played with by especially small children. Small separated magnets, especially any that happened to fall and roll across the floor out of sight, seem like a greater risk to me.

LocalPCGuy 12y ago
They should not be played with where any of the things you mention may come into play. Period. People need to be responsible, and it really isn't on the magnet companies to ensure that. Their job is to develop a product and then responsibly label and market it in such a way that people are reasonably informed that these are not for kids. Sorry, I don't buy the "well they look like candy, so gotta protect the kids" argument. The witch hunt for these things is ridiculous, and does not stand up to scrutiny - Dogs are statistically over 120 times more dangerous than Buckyball magnet sets. Should we ban dogs? This is simply a case of someone championing their cause because they can, not because it's the right thing to do.