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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."
So, ask for them to be done medium?
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.
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."
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
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?
Top five causes of injury death (source World Report on Child Injury Prevention 2008)
Road crashes: 260,000 children a year
Drowning: 175,000 children a year
Burns: 96,000 children a year
Falls: 47,000 children a year
Poisoning: 45,000 children each year
Yup worrying about rare earth magnets is pretty useless.
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.
Just heat the child up to above the Curie temperature of the magnets and they will fall right off!
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.
There is a certain assumption that when you give a child an age appropriate *toy* you can let the child play with the toy without direct supervision. If a parent's job is to literally watch every single thing their child does from playing with their toys to watching their Dora the Explorer videos, when precisely can said parent be expect to cook, eat, poop, or drive? I'm all for parental responsibility, and yes there are many times when a parent should be supervising a child; but really there have to be some activities that at least require a more passive form of supervision or nothing will ever get done. Surely playing with the child's own toys should be one of those times?
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I believe chilli or chilli oil when used judiciously can teach children not to put just anything into their mouths, and to obey their parents when told to not put stuff in their mouths.
The "effective dose" of chilli is quite low compared to the toxic/harmful dose, so it's quite safe for such things. The kid might cry a lot, but after that they'll be more likely to believe dad or mom when they say "No!".
It doesn't matter how good of a teacher you are, your two-year old will still stick toys in his mouth.
It doesn't matter how observant a parent you are, there will still be moments where you look away.
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