3 ms·

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.

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.