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Rare Earth Magnets Pose Threat To Children
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Many of today's toys contain rare-earth magnets which are much more powerful than the magnets of yesteryear and the magnets pose a serious threat to children when more than one is ingested because as the magnets attract one another they can cause a range of serious injuries, including holes through internal organs, blood poisoning and death (PDF). Braden Eberle, 4, swallowed two tiny magnets from his older brother's construction kit on two successive days last spring and his mother's first reaction was that the magnet would pass through her son's system without a problem. "People swallow pennies of the same size every day," said Jill Eberle. "They're smaller than an eraser." But next morning, with Braden still in pain, the family's doctor told them to go straight to the emergency room where an X-ray revealed two magnets were stuck together. "They were attracted to each other with the wall of each segment they were in stuck together," said Dr. Sanjeev Dutta, the pediatric surgeon at Good Samaritan Hospital who would operate on Braden later that day. "Because they were so powerful, the wall of the intestine was getting squeezed, squeezed, squeezed, and then it just necrosed, or kind of rotted away, and created a hole between the two." The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says at least 33 children have been injured from ingesting magnets (PDF) with a 20 month-old dying, and at least 19 other children requiring surgery."
Huh? They're putting rare-earth magnets in toys?
The bozo that thought that was a good idea has obviously never actually used a neodymium magnet...
So, ask for them to be done medium?
Parents paying attention to their kids is the cure, not banning magnets...
I thought toys with small parts had warnings and age restrictions on them, magnets or not..?
These magnets come with clear warnings not to let kids eat them as they may become attached inside them. Seriously, is this article nothing more than a longer version of the warning that appears on the magnets themselves?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
These can be used to simulate a tongue piercing by placing one on the top of your tongue, and another below it. Obviously this leads to at least a few teenagers swallowing magnets as well.
This is well-known. Why is is news?
I think that as toys makers get more and more safety conscious toys become less collectible because they dull the designs and take out features
Take for example G1 Transformers - metal, mij, chrome, full length smokestacks. The same toy could never be sold today to kids even if they somehow could bring the price down.
I feel sorry for my kids kids toys. It will be a glob of synthetic material which safety breaks down if ingested. It won't last more than 2 years though without decomposing itself.
The pdf says they are aware of a total of 33 injuries and one death in the US ever due to magnet ingestion. Out of a 300 million population that is a vanishingly small risk. Meanwhile there are something like 30,000 accidental poisonings each year. Are we really paying attention to the right things?
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
I think this somehow makes neodymium magnets seem even cooler. They've killed children... not by poisoning them, but by magnetism alone.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
33 children injured total is not a huge number. I think more children are injured by electrical outlets, knives, stoves, etc around the house each day. Parents need to watch their kids. The child in the summary would have had a lot less trouble if they had taken the kid to the doctor immediately; rather then waiting a few days. If the child is in pain they need to get the kid checked out asap. That being said there could be a warning in the box stating that swallowed magnets warrant a trip to the doctor, but I don't see why this a news fro nerd or really something that matters to most.
"Last spring", in this case, means April, 2007.
Not sure this news item posted on the right web site. Don't you think this is mission creep, timothy?
While I understand the incredulity of a nerd/geek having kids, there is yet a one-word simple answer... MAGNETS!
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
I agree that four years old is a bit young to be playing with rare earth magnets, but around the age of 6 I already knew better than to put anything like that into my mouth. Around that time I was playing in my grandpa's workshop (he used to work in refrigerator repair, and the place was full of scrap metal, scrap wood, small electric motors, MAGNETS *gasp* , hand tools, and lots of other cool stuff to play with.) Naturally, I quickly got fond of building things and tinkering with machines.
There was dangerous stuff in there (power tools and old cans of freon that he never got rid of for some reason) but he told me never to play with that and I was smart enough to listen. When he showed me what a table saw could do to a piece of scrap wood in under 2 seconds I quickly learned that I shouldn't put my finger there. The problem today is that we're treating kids who should be old enough for this stuff like toddlers. (mostly because people have turned into litigious bastards... true, they always were but it seems like it's gotten worse in the last decade or two) As a result, kids are way behind the curve on development than they were when I was growing up because their development is being stunted. If you took a typical sheltered kid from today and moved him back in time about 20 years, he would probably be considered slow and undeveloped.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
still swallowing things like magnets? Seems odd to me. That being said, there are also fake tongue piercing which are rare earth magnets too. Real easy to swallow and they wreak havoc inside the body as well. So I guess even as your child ages you have to constantly keep forbidding stuff.
The title of this article should say "... Pose Threat to Hungry Children".
Note that is of course also an issue for pets.
Absolutely. Have people learned nothing from the tale of the old woman who swallowed a fly? Ponies should come with warning labels.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
It will be a glob of synthetic material which safety breaks down if ingested. It won't last more than 2 years though without decomposing itself.
The way things are going, that sounds a bit dangerous.
Large sections of high strength (but extra soft) completely non-toxic material which you could not fit into your mouth.
Also, none of it can be more than 10cm off of the ground because they might fall off and hurt themselves.
Do you have children? If so have you managed to watch them every second of their lives. No matter what you do. They will find a way.
Just a bit of natural selection. Chlorine in the gene pool, so to speak.
Did you take the plastic bags away at the same time?
All of my "rare-earth" magnets came with giant warnings that not only say "KEEP AWAY FROM ALL CHILDREN" but also "Keep away from nose and mouth. Do not swallow. If swallowed, seek emergency medical attention as magnets may stick together in the intestine, causing severe injury or death".
How could that be more clear?
Just tell your infant to only swallow one at a time. Problem solved!
The problem is not toy rare earth magnets, but rare earth magnets used in toys.
A magnet used as a locking device for the clasp of a book, magnets used in a toy train to hold them together, etc.
Just like lead paint, the substitution is not obvious.
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
I think a better comparison would be deaths (or injuries) compared to prevalence of the items in question. Of the 300,000,000 people in the US, only a small fraction live in an environment with access to rare earth magnets. But most, if not all, live in an environment where there are poisonous substances. Not to mention that according to the CDC, the overwhelming number of non-intentional poisonings are drug overdoses.
I'm not certain that we're talking about the same class of problems here.
this is really just an ad for bucky balls at thinkgeek
if you only swallow one per day you probably wont get 2 in there at the same time
The title is misleading. It makes one believe Rare Earth Magnets might pose a tactile toxic or radiative concern.
Rename it to "Rare Earth Magnets pose threat to children who ingest them" because otherwise you are wasting my time. My kid doesn't eat magnets and I've known about this hazard for a couple years.
This is not only OLD news, this is IRRELEVANT news to me that you misled me into re-reading.
I have a child, he is 12 now. He NEVER had a problem swallowing stupid shit when he was young. At 6 years old he was at least competent enough to know not to swallow anything but food. When he was a bit younger yea sure that might have posed a risk but we were very attentive parents and always kept an eye on him and were very careful about what we left out. Additionally we talked to him constantly and warned him about the risk of such things, and yes believe it or not that does work. Children are smarter than we give them credit for and allow them to be by dumbing everything down for them. Personally, I think that if you have 6 year old still doing that sort of thing you've got more problems than you know. Lets just say the problem extends beyond your child, stupid parents make stupid babies.
"Rare Earth Magnets" should read "Negligent Parents".
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
Just heat the child up to above the Curie temperature of the magnets and they will fall right off!
A warning label which is not present on toy packaging. Children's toys which contain rare-earth magnets.
Did you try it with your intestines?
Funny typos aside, that's besides the point. How many children live (or play) in environments with easily obtainable rare earth magnets compared to those who live (or play) in environments with easily obtainable poisonous substances?
I don't know the answer to that. My point is that if we're going to compare, we should find out. Otherwise we're comparing the price of tea in China to the price of coffee in Tokyo.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fcking-magnets-how-do-they-work
Nearly 300 children drowned in their bath tub.
Nearly 60 drown in a 5 gallon buckets
Over 50 in a hot tub and 16 in toilets.
But of course we need new regulations for magnets.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Do you have children? If so have you managed to watch them every second of their lives.
We don't let them out of their locked cages that often.
Have gnu, will travel.
Just like lead paint, the substitution is not obvious.
http://drmustafaerarslan.net/
ah Saturday Morning comments ... posting nonsensical things on Slashdot.
Actually, that happens on all days and at all times in my experience. :)
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Could you come down off your 4-difit UID geek high-horse and for a picosecond entertain the idea that not everything is so easily controlled in a highly dynamic nonlinear multivariate system commonly referred to as a child-rearing household in a developed nation?
Raising children is hard (I say this as a mid-forties bachelor not living in my parents' basement), and I would never dare to presume that avoiding all accidents is possible regarding the welfare of a child. I'd doubly not dare to presume such if I were a parent.
Ignorant as I am, I at least know better than to cast smug blame on the parents of children who have undergone a medical emergency. For all that is good, please follow these steps:
blog
if kids do swallow a Rare Earth Magnet, the parents can keep an eye on them a lot easier... just check the front of the fridge! they'll probably be stuck there....
Why are you surprised? This is exactly what happens when Americans buy toys manufactured in third-world shithole nations, where the concept of "safety" is virtually unheard of.
And who exactly, thought it'd be a good idea to let children play with tiny magnets in the first place? The manufacturer?
-- Chaos, panic, pandemonium... My job here is done!
It's for bloody kid's toys. For most things a velcro dot would be good enough for a toy.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Spoons Pose Threat To Children!
iPods Pose Threat To Children!
Diapers Pose Threat To Children!
Meteors Pose Threat To Children!
Internetz Pose Threat To Children!
So many possibilities for a sensational headline. Poor Timmy, how does he choose... so poorly, so often?.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Which isn't an issue so long as the magnets are well connected to something too big to swallow. If your kid's toys break into pieces small enough to put in their mouth it's time to throw them out.
The Insane Clown Posse is still trying to figure out how magnets work.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Still swallowing things that are not food at age four? That kid has bigger problems coming in life!
http://www.acetonestudio.com
No, the problem is that magnets are delicious.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
You mean there are no alternatives to locking devices for books or ways to hold trains together? I mean apart from the ones that were used before magnets were used.
The issue is not alternatives, the issue is price. That and the fact that kids will put stuff in their mouth and swallow it, no matter what. That is what kids do and that is why parents should not be putting them in front of a TV. Instead they must spend time with the kids.
You are a parent. That does not stop. EVER!
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I actually had two small rare earth magnets in a plastic packaging, their only purpose was to hold the package shut.
They were relatively easy to extract from the package, and there were no indications that the package even had magnets in the first place. While I don't really care for the excessive warning labels for the American public, these are powerful enough to be scary. And placing them in toys or ... packaging seems reckless.
Almost all items can cause injuries if a kid swallows them regularly.
Yeah, because we all know that children will only break their toys in front of their parents. Plus even if it was broken out of the parent's view we all know that children always show their parents the things they have broken immediately afterwords...
That's why children's toys are large such that they cannot be swallowed, and rugged such that they cannot be broken into smaller pieces and swallowed.
Your fingers are thick and durable. Small magnets at such distance isn't much of a risk. Put them on opposite sides of your nasal septum, and you'll have significantly more risk of bruising. Do that with weaker internal tissues, drag them along, and there's a good chance you will cause internal bleeding.
Did you take the plastic bags away at the same time?
I am fairly sure that it is standard practice to take plastic bags away from small children if they start playing with them, yes.
I don't think there's a danger of a child swallowing a TV.
(Yes, you should spend time with your kids instead of just putting them in front of a TV. But then, I don't see any connection between children swallowing things and children sitting in front of a TV.)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I'm sorry, but how is this related to putting kids in front of the TV?
While I don't disagree that one should spend time with one's children and in general TV should be avoided, at some point those little darlings of yours are going to have to learn to play by themselves. Despite what you appear to imagine it is not physically possible to closely supervise one's offspring every minute of the day.
So you were right, and then you went off on some odd tangent. But that's ok - don't feel bad.
The kid did eat them one at a time, as even the summary states.
Here is a great video explaining how magnets will hurt you.
Saturday morning comments happen on all days and at all times? :-)
Time seems to be more relative than I thought.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
A new research study has found that being alive poses multiple threats not only to children, but to all living things. The study discovered that just by being alive your chance of dying is an astounding 100%. More on this shocking study at 11.
And it's official: *everything* is bad for children. Paranoid parents are so much easier for marketers and politicians to manipulate.
It's science, people!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I'm not an EE but could you degauss a Rare Earth Magnet in an MRI or other magnetic coil if it was injested?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
But I'll bet you paid a lot more attention to the items you knew could be dangerous and not so much to the generally harmless ones.
Many parents aren't aware that rare earth magnets are not like the chunks of hard rubber or ferrite that they had when they were kids. Once made aware they'll put them in the more attention category and we'll see a lot less incidents.
Don't forget the good side of every story.
The sideeffects will weed out wimpy teenagers that cannot take pain
and orders fake neodynium "piercing" kits.
I'm not that dumb.
Does it NOT say on toys that they should be kept away from those under______age? Then it is the responsibility of the PARENTS to insure no one under that prescribed age is allowed to be around such toys. Here we go again...there will be endless class action lawsuits, and we'll have to endure more stupid "if you or a loved one has been injured while playing with X toy, call the law offices of we sue and make tons of money". I've gotten so sick of the stupidity of the average human that sometimes I wish a huge asteroid would wipe the whole thing out so nature & god can start all over. People wonder why intelligent life in outer space has not contacted us. Well, when you see stories about how adults are so stupid as to allow a small child anywhere near something they can put into their mouth, then you know why they steer clear of the planet Earth.
Better question, how do they taste?!
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
This story comes from the Magnetix recall of 2006: "CPSC and Mega Brands are aware of one death, one aspiration and 27 intestinal injuries. Emergency surgical intervention was needed in all but one case." The toy was a construction set of plastic parts with small embedded magnets, usable by small children. The small magnets weren't embedded very well, apparently just pressed into recesses in the plastic, and came out easily. Mega Brands paid a $1.1 million fine for this.
Smart kids don't swallow their toys. Stupid kids do. Sometimes stupid kids die. Deal with it, in the meanwhile, don't kill the fun for everyone else.
-- Darwin
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
It's inevitable that some kid is going to be harmed by something at some point in time. Parents need to start taking responsibility of watching their kids. At that young age, critters don't have common sense. Parents are stupid to think otherwise and should be teaching them right, wrong, safe, danger, good, bad. he write-up says it all: the mother's first reaction was "it won't harm him". What else is she letting the kid eat because "it won't harm him"? Apparently we have a parent with no common sense either, one that is not ready to be raising children. Jeez.
It's sad to see material things and freedoms being banned or regulated by the Nanny-nuts, and it's sad to not see the right people slapping parents with a sensibility stick when they take up a crusade because of something stupid that they could have prevented. Instead, we all end up being inconvenienced or punished by their failures.
I don't know what kind of people Jill hangs around, but I for one don't not see people swallowing pennies every day.
I think the key problem here is that the children don't have warning labels attached. I propose that in future hospitals tattoo babies shortly after, or if possible before, birth with something along the lines of "WARNING: child may do dangerous things". Billions of other warning labels would then be unnecessary.
It's too late once they're born. Put the warning on the condom. WARNING: Having children will turn your hair grey, ruin your sex life, and that's when things are going well! ;-)
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Raising children is hard (I say this as a mid-forties bachelor not living in my parents' basement), and I would never dare to presume that avoiding all accidents is possible regarding the welfare of a child. I'd doubly not dare to presume such if I were a parent.
Ignorant as I am, I at least know better than to cast smug blame on the parents of children who have undergone a medical emergency.
Maybe I'm just a terrible person, but I don't think The Children make any person or any claim blameless or beyond scrutiny.
If a kid swallows a rare-earth magnet, the best thing to do is to seek medical attention RIGHT AWAY. Secondly, TAKE THE SOURCE OF THE MAGNETS AWAY FROM THEM!
A suitable punishment for such behavior would be to make them eat things that no kid would want to eat:
1. Chili peppers,
2. Castor oil (the medical stuff),
3. Lima beans,
4. Anchovies / Sardines
You can also spray some electronics duster on the stuff you don't want them to eat, but know they will.
The 'compressed air' stuff sold at electronics shops contains Bitrex, which I found out the hard way (by accident) tastes like absolute crap, makes everything else taste like absolute crap, stays on the hands (until they get a good scrubbing), and will linger for an hour or so in your mouth.
(This is the kind of stuff that happens when a bunch of cops get bored and realize the department is awash in office supplies and Christmas food. It made a better prank than crank-calling the Lt. from the office next to his, but that's another story.....)
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
They can be a danger to kids (just about anything can be a danger to kids) and that is good to know for people who may not realize the power in rare earth magnets. But, more importantly, the use of rare earths creates a dependence on China that is critical although new companies are now trying to fill the supply gap. That makes a good stock market emerging market if you trust in such things. Also, the conditions at such mines and the corresponding factories are lethal with likely many generations of Chinese and 3rd world laborers going to die like the early days of the coal mining industry. Better extraction and refining methods are needed as well as alternatives to rare earths which are being pursued. I have written a few articles on the rare earths and these magnets: http://againsttheodds.hubpages.com/hub/Super-Neodymium-Magnets and http://againsttheodds.hubpages.com/hub/The-Race-For-The-Stocks-Of-The-17-Rare-Earth-Elements are a few.
That you never breed and therefore prevent your faulty genes from contaminating the gene pool. What other excuse would there be for a loser to try to blame the parents for the actions of infants in a sorry attempt at justifying their own deluded sense of adequacy.
Actually, with modern flat screen TV's, there is a real threat of the kids knocking the TV over and onto themselves. Never happened with the old console sets from when I was a kid.
For those of you who have been fortunate enough to breed, what do you do to keep your spawn from being harmed while sequestered in your lair? Here are a few tips:
If a toy includes a rare earth magnet as a part and that part is easy to detach and consume, then a house with that toy would probably count as an environment where children have easy access to rare earth magnets, no?
They must not be too rare if they are being used in children's toys. Whats the requirement of being classified rare?
Jack of all trades,master of none
Must have spent too many days riding on their Little Yellow Bus ;-)
I've stripped those magnets out of hard drives many times and found no injury
YMMV. I've seen hard drive magnets that are quite safe, but I once opened a drive that had magnets so strong they were literally blown to pieces when they came near each other. I couldn't pry them apart with my fingers, when I used a screwdriver the steel plate that they were glued on came loose. I ended with a mess of magnet dust clung together in a lump.
No they don't. At least, not in the entire EU and certainly not for all toys. I just read an article about how the Dutch Food and Wares Safety Inspection holds a lot of inspections, specifically aimed at protecting children from bad toys. Most of the well known manufacturers are very afraid of having bad toys on sale, but a lot of smaller ones aren't equipped or motivated to check out all the stuff they buy externally themselves. So the Inspection does it for them. One of the things they look for is how easy it is to break up a toy. If it is easy enough to break it up, it has to be removed from the market if it breaks into bits smaller than will fit into the throat of a small child. And magnets were a point they especially looked for, given their lethality and the fact it is hard to notice for parents that something that small has gone missing.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
30 kids is one out of every TEN MILLION people in the U.S.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that parents should not pay attention to this issue, but 30 kids a year is NOTHING. Far far more die of bathtub accidents, but you don't see people making a big deal out of bathtubs.
It is 1,000 or more times more likely that the kid will get struck by lightning. Should you, therefore, force kids to carry around a lightning rod everywhere they go?
This is one of those "mis-perception of risk" things that you read about. There are much more important things in this world that need your attention.
Time Cube Guy was RIGHT! Holy shit!
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
By that you must mean when Americans buy toys and then leave their kid in front of the TV instead of....i don't know....parenting them.
I'm surprised they haven't caused any sexual accidents. I can think up some interesting uses for such magnets right now.
Table-ized A.I.
If your flat screen is sitting on a tempered glass tabletop, they probably don't need to knock the tv for that to happen. Tempered glass is very sensitive to heat variations, and prone to defects that can make it break apart under tension. The crt tv sets were often too heavy for this kind of furniture, but now is quite popular.
You are a parent. That does not stop. EVER!
Yes. And you are a child of someone. That does not stop. EVER!
Should we make sure your parents keep you under lock and key? From your comment, I sure think you didn't learn certain lessons - say, about compassion, maybe. You sure don't understand the limits of parents' control over children. What else didn't you learn? Being so stupid, maybe you do need to be locked up for your own safety. Don't worry - we'll keep the toys having rare earth magnets away from you.
That is all.
That's fine until they lean up against the refrigerator :-)
If kids eat them. It sounds like the issue here is not that the magnets are particularly dangerous (i never ate any pennies, and I doubt most kids do)--but rather that parents don't perceive/anticipate the danger and seek medical help before a situation forms. If your kid drank a cup of bleach, you would, I hope, immediately take him to the hospital. People just need to understand the same mindset applies to small powerful magnets.
And, just as you would bleach, don't put them where a small child may get to them. It's really a pretty simple fix.
Why would the mother's first reaction be an expectation that the magnets would pass through the kid's system? Magnets tend to stick to one another. Humanity has known this for a little while now.
This reminds me of a story about leaded plastic. An American company had plastic rules produced in China, and the tested positive for lead but not to any immediately dangerous degree unless you were sticking them in your mouth. The American company was furious at the Chinese manufacturer and questioned why they would make such a thing. The Chinese manufacturer, confused, asked "why would any child stupid enough to put a ruler in their mouth be using a ruler in the first place?".
These magnets are basically the same thing - they are dangerous and they shouldn't be near little kids. You hide your knives, lighters, batteries, and medicine from them so why should this be any different. The article notes a case where it was in a construction kit - even the toys my 3 year old plays with I wouldn't let near a baby so it's their own fault for not managing their environment. I mean come on, the kids swallowed not one but two of them on -different- days.
At least the magnets are safer than the Happy Fun Ball (tm)
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
But the human species' kids are so stupid they stick anything that doesn't remotely resemble food in their mouth? God, if a species in the wild had kids as useless as ours they'd be extinct within one generation.. Just had to be said..
All of my "rare-earth" magnets came with giant warnings that not only say "KEEP AWAY FROM ALL CHILDREN" but also "Keep away from nose and mouth. Do not swallow. If swallowed, seek emergency medical attention as magnets may stick together in the intestine, causing severe injury or death".
I wonder where you get your old hard drives from. I never saw such a warning on any of mine.
I don't know about the Thais, but I doubt most parents would wean their babies on spicy food.
On the other hand, capsaicin eaten by the mother can end up in the breast milk, thus Thai babies' organism can a little bit get used to it earlier in life as other children.
they'd have grown out of putting just anything in their mouths :).
~ 3 y.o.
Afterward the part of the brain has grown enough to be able to repress in-born reflexes like swallowing anything put into the mouths.
Until that point, children can't help it. It's just a reflex, anything going near the mouth *will* be swallowed, no matter what.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Did they replace the magnets in Thomas the Tank engine trains and I haven't noticed? Though I doubt those are rare earth, as the kids wouldn't be able to separate the cars if they were...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Hmm, that didn't occur to me...maybe I should get a new table for my tv...
Then again, I have not had an issue in the 4 years I have had that glass TV stand, so perhaps the furniture makers thought of that?
If someone is concerned about the kid knocking a LCD TV onto themselves, why not mount it to the wall? Those wall mounts are pretty much invincible.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'm no glass expert, but google for "exploding table glass" or "table glass explode", and you'll get a lot of results of people describing/complaining about the issue. The wallmounts are nice, but you can't stick them in front of a window, so it may not work for everybody.