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Feds Ban 'Buckyballs' Magnets
SicariusMan writes "Looks like warnings and other precautions were not enough to save Buckyballs Magnets. According to this report, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is concerned about the increase in children swallowing the rare earth magnets, and has issued its first stop-sale order in 11 years. Amazon and others have already agreed to stop selling the toys. 'Although the commission issued a safety alert in November, it has received more than a dozen reports since then of children ingesting the magnets, with many requiring surgery, it said. More than 2 million Buckyballs and at least 200,000 Buckycubes, a similar cube-shaped magnet, have been sold in the United States.'"
Something that can be dangerous when grossly misused can be outright banned.
Unless it's a weapon
The article states that dozens of children have swallowed the magnets and 12 required surgery. There are over 60M children age 14 and younger in the US. Isn't this a bit of an over-reaction? I'm curious as to how many children have had problems after swalling coins and other items that people may have on their desk (ie paper clips, thumb tacks, etc.)?
Seems the shootings in Colorado hurt a lot more people, but for some reason, they haven't banned the sale of bullets.
I modded you flamebait, but decided I'd rather tell you to your face that this comment is every bit as ignorant and prejudiced as any I've heard uttered by the so-called trailer trash I've encountered. I don't know if this really reflects your beliefs or you're just trying to be controversial, but at face value that's stereotypical trailer-trash talk.
Uranium and bleach
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
Fucking crazy. Some schizophrenic lunatic can buy thousands of rounds of ammunition of the Internet, but God forbid anyone should buy a Buckyball magnet.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
How about a ban on stupid trailer-park dumbass kids who ruin it for the rest of us?
Why is this insightful? It's not the kids, or even their parents that are banning this stuff. They're a vocal minority. It's a government that wants to nanny us 24 hours a day banning things like this. "For the children" is just another variant of "the public good". Various levels of government want to regulate... or outright ban... everything from the size of your soda to the ingredients in your food.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
We don't sell cribs or strollers that collapse on infants.
That's simply a bad product. I'm sure you could sue the company for that. These work as intended, however.
We don't sell poisoned dog food.
That would be intentionally harming them. Not a fitting analogy.
We don't sell toys marketed to children that can easily kill them.
I think we should be able to if they're just imbeciles and their parents don't pay attention.
It's just a toy, and it really isn't worth kids dying over it.
If it means banning it, it is. Just because you don't find it useful doesn't mean everyone else feels the same way. I believe "for the children" is a terrible excuse whether or not children really are in danger.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
It's not the kids, or even their parents that are banning this stuff.
It's the parents who killed their kids who are looking to blame others that are calling for the ban. The government didn't call for the ban. There wasn't an independent investigation that found them unsafe. It was parents begging the government to ban them that got them looked at. And the democratic government looked at the wishes of the citezens and responded.
The issue is either that democracy is bad, or the parents are to blame.
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The kids aren't dumb asses. Kids are kids. Young kids put things in their mouth, it's human nature. Dumb ass parents, and dumb ass owns of these magnets are why it happens.
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Never mind that nail, rock, and used condom over there on the ground. What if someone's kid picks that up and tries to swallow it? Lets ban all that stuff!
No. How about you teach your kid common sense and save the entire world the trouble of looking after them for you? I'm not going to run around the world slapping warning labels on stuff for your kid that may not even be old enough to read yet.
"Don't childproof the world - worldproof the child."
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Responsibility begins before purchase.
If the child is old enough and responsible enough to save up money and pay for their own toys, he/she is not within the group of children likely to die by these magnets. In any other case, the parents (or some other presumably responsible adult) are purchasing the magnets.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
It's summertime. The self-centered teens have nothing to do but bitch about how everyone's keeping them down.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
The kids aren't dumb asses. Kids are kids. Young kids put things in their mouth, it's human nature. Dumb ass parents, and dumb ass owns of these magnets are why it happens.
So if parents ignore age rating on a goddamned dildo, can we sue the manufacturer for child sexual abuse?
At some point, it comes down to "don't be an idiot". If you buy your kids a gun and they blow their heads off - don't blame Remington, try a frickin' mirror.
I couldn't disagree more. Buckyballs are not toys for kids. They're toys intended for adults, marketed for adults. Arguing that they should be banned because kids play with them and get hurt is just as nonsensical as arguing that the Ferrari should be banned because parents can give their five-year-olds the car keys and those kids can drive the car off a cliff. There is zero difference. Both are toys designed for adults, and clearly labeled as such.
These products already have prominent warning labels on their packages saying that these are dangerous when swallowed, and that they are not intended for children under 13 years of age. Most kids stop swallowing random objects by about age three, so that's a solid ten year safety margin. To the extent that some of them might have been sold prior to when that warning label was added, they should be held liable for any injuries resulting from those early sales. However, it is not the CPSC's responsibility to protect parents who are so clueless that they buy a product that is clearly marked for ages 13+ and give it to a two-year-old. The only way to achieve such a standard would be to ban all toys designed for children over three years of age. No sane person would say that this is a good idea.
As for younger kids getting their hands on them accidentally, it is the parents' responsibility to watch their kids, and to ensure that anything potentially dangerous is kept out of reach. You don't see people trying to ban household cleansers because kids can be killed by drinking them. You don't see people trying to ban all medications because kids can climb into the medicine cabinet and OD. And yet all of these are things that children of the very same age do. There really is absolutely no difference here. The products are properly labeled, so to the extent that there is a problem, in much the same way as we have poison control ads, the right solution is public service announcements to educate the public about the risks of kids swallowing magnets, not a ban on the products.
Oh, and more importantly, educate doctors, nurses, and poison control centers so that when you ask them if you should worry after a kid swallows one of these things, they immediately tell you to go count them and make damn sure the kid swallowed only one.
People trying to get products banned because of egregious misuse and abuse are what drives us rapidly towards being a nanny state in which anything interesting, useful, or fun is outlawed to protect us from our own stupidity. That isn't a world I want to live in.
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Last I checked, the 2nd amendment doesn't say:
"...and the right of the people to keep and play with Buckyballs shall not be infringed."
Banning the sales of ammo would be unconstitutional, regardless of any statistic. Banning of Buckballs (not that I agree) would be within the dubiously used "Commerce Clause"
I agree, this isn't a case of "It's a dangerous product!" It's a case of parents who don't read warnings and let their kids have access to something that clearly isn't safe for them. According to a quick Google search in 2002, over 1 million children were hospitalized due to accidental poisoning, and in 2001, 96 were killed as a result. Following the lead of the Buckyball ban, let's ban all substances that can poison a child! http://www.preventinjury.org/PDFs/POISONING.pdf
If the child is old enough and responsible enough to save up money and pay for their own toys, he/she is not within the group of children likely to die by these magnets.
That doesn't mean that the child doesn't have a sibling that might swallow them.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Even if you swallow some balls, but not at once, you will need to go to the surgery.
Correct - you will need surgery but nobody has yet died. However if you look at the stats for accidental poisonings in the US you will see that there are 41,592 deaths every year. 91% of these are due to drugs which leaves 3,473 deaths every year due to non-drug related poisonings. It is not clear how many of these are due to kids swallowing household chemicals but you have to wonder why there is any need to ban something over 12 surgeries and zero deaths given the number of actual deaths from swallowing things.
Uh huh. So tell us how the ball shattered.
i had toys with small pieces when my younger sister was at the stage where everything went in her mouth and i was told not to let her near them. i was also given a piece of plywood to put across the entrance to my door so she couldn't get to them when i was using them. i was also banned from using them in the same room as her without parental supervision. never had a problem. i don't see why there is issue here just keep out of reach of small children and dumb-ass's
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And I want to own Buckyball magnets. It's my choice, not the government's. Seems like a tyranny to me. You're the gun owner, get out there and water the tree of Liberty with a little blood.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's a case of parents who don't read warnings and let their kids have access to something that clearly isn't safe for them.
Parents would probably read warnings if they were only displayed on products that are actually dangerous. In the US, for fear of lawsuits, everything comes with a long list of warnings. It's like the boy who cried wolf: Parents are trained to ignore warnings. (I once bought a toy for my three year old that was labeled "EU: Not suitable for children under 3. US: Not suitable for children under 5.")
It's not that simple. I have an 11 year old, 3 year old and 18 month old. The 11 year old is obviously allowed to have such toys. She is required however to make sure they are picked up and stored in her bedroom and has been told that if I find parts laying around that the younger ones could get a hold of I will throw them out without warning or even telling her about it. I have followed through on that many many times.
However, a few months ago when changing my son's diaper, I found he had swallowed and subsequently passed, a silicon button that was part of my daughter's iPod cover. One of these: http://amzn.com/B0086YLNVW Apparently one he saw laying around before I did.
I'm not saying that a ban on this toy is appropriate. I'm certain the packaging is appropriately labeled with age restrictions and warnings. It's just not as simple as "parents who don't read warnings".
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