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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.'"
Thanks to Woot! I now own several million Buckyball magnets. I was waiting for the rare Earth metal market to skyrocket before cashing in, but this may be my chance. Hello Ebay!
Soon we'll be battling the Buckyball cartels in the streets of America. I say end prohibition now!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Something that can be dangerous when grossly misused can be outright banned.
Unless it's a weapon
I have 7 sets of them. Well... technically about 6.7 sets. It's hard not to lose one here or there when you play with them nearly daily. I'm just glad that I got them now, before the ban... they are my third favorite toy, behind my computer and my phone. I make bracelets out of multiple colors as transient art (lost as soon as they stretch out and get rearranged), play with them on my desk, and use them as temporary tie tacks if I leave my mine at home.
Yes, tie tack. Don't knock it, it works!
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
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.
Looks like I'll just have to get my kid Lawn Darts for Christmas instead.
How about a ban on stupid trailer-park dumbass kids who ruin it for the rest of us?
They already tried that. You may have heard of "Planned Parenthood"...
There's no place like
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.
Me and my brother recieved the silver Buckyball cubes as Christmas gifts a few years back. These things are a blast to play with.
When one of the balls on my brothers set shattered, we called one of the listed numbers for the company to ask about maybe purchasing a replacement ball. The person on the other end was extremely interested in how this happened (apparently they hadn't had a report of a ball shattering before), and offered to send us an entire new set for free. On Christmas day. This was excellent, excellent support for an awesome product.
It's sad to hear about this.
I'm not saying lets kill all the stupid people, I'm just suggesting we remove all the warning labels and let nature sort it out.
These are neodymium magnets that stick together quite strongly. If two are swallowed they run the risk of coming within close proximity to each other while passing through separate parts of the intestines and clamping them together. Only way to remove them at that point is surgery.
That's not to say the other things you mentioned don't run a risk of getting stuck, or that these will get stuck. By being rare earth magnets they set themselves up for causing problems in the twisty path of our lower digestive tract.
I think the sales of Zen Magnets are about to increase...
(For those who don't know, Zen Magnets are *exactly* the same thing as buckyballs except for a very slight increase in quality and price. That would also mean they'd be more dangerous due to higher magnetic strength.)
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.
Hey, at least we know that it reality it takes at least a dozen dumbass kids now to ruin it for everyone else... The Onion pegged it at three, back in the day.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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
My understanding is that it is different, the intestine isn't blocked, but actually ruptured because the magnets pull through it.
These are small and unusually powerful magnets. Swallow one, and then another a half-hour later (or any time before passing the first), and they will pull together, pinching your internal organs, and they'll never come out without invasive surgery.
A normal magnet, if swallowed, will just pass. And if it's big enough to have the same pull that these rare earth magnets have, it'll be uncomfortable enough during the swallowing that most kids won't do it twice, so that pinching thing likely won't happen.
The CB App. What's your 20?
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.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
No, "The Government" is responding to citizen concerns. The people who don't want something banned don't get together to stop it. It's the Citizen who allow this to happen.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
nail, rock, and used condom...
Call me old fashioned, but I always preferred rock, paper, scissors.
I had lawn darts. Flying Death From Above is what we called them, and that's the way we liked it!
Buckyballs are *NOT* for kids!
They are marketed to adults. Designed for adults. There are 6 warnings on the package, instructions, plastic storage box, etc that is so expressive, it's to the point where I'm not sure a child should LOOK at it. Really, above and beyond on warnings that kids should not go near these things.
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
The best part is when the dumbasses say things like "we did much worse things in my day and *I* survived!". Of course you survived, you fucking asshole, all the kids who didn't aren't here to say they died.
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."
What has to occur for you to actually get it? When two or more magnets are swallowed, and they come together on opposite sides of intestinal tissue (note that the intestine is intricately folded), life-threatening pinching can occur. Do we have to show you pictures for you to get it? Sock puppets? A video game where you chase little magnets through a child's intestine? A raunchy cartoon on Comedy Central? What, Dude, what?
It's simply a labeling issue:
http://www.cpsc.gov/CPSCPUB/PREREL/prhtml10/10251.html
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Rock dulls nail, condom covers rock, nail breaks condom!
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.
Better yet, a ban on idiots who don't read the facts of the case? also a ban on people who post these damn articles without any real facts in them.
This is ridiculous, and when a headline is ridiculous you should follow it to the source. Gather some fact.
The article is nothing but a set up baseless attack on Obama.
What has happened is the CPSC told the company that there are reports of injuries. Items like these should be marketed for "14 or older". The company labeled it 13+. The company could have simply change the labels on the new one being produced when the first found out, in 2009. The didn't in 2010, they didn't in 2011. The "Ban" is only on the ones labels 13+
For some reason, the company is stirring this into a much larger issue then it is,. Sine the company attacks Obama, I suspect Zucker did it intentionally. Why else wouldn't you change your label?
" This recall involves the Buckyballs® high powered magnets sets labeled "Ages 13+""
http://www.cpsc.gov/CPSCPUB/PREREL/prhtml10/10251.html
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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.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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
So what you're saying is that someone needs to make a gun that shoots Buckyballs, and then we can buy them again?
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!
It's called a right to bear arms. It's a right because it was considered necessary for the defense of our basic rights.
In addition, most gun related homicides stem from drug or gang violence - and a large percentage of those cases are using illegally obtained firearms.
Some of those "homicides" (depending on the statistic set you're using) may be self defense cases.
So, I'm going to argue that we shouldn't be banning magnets just because some kid is stupid enough to swallow one. I'm also going to argue that banning guns, opposed to banning Bucky balls, does more harm then good, if only because gun ownership does not correlate with homicide.. (Some recent numbers for you)
Yes, the surgery is needed. If swallowed the magnetic balls stick together through the intestine walls, cutting off circulation and eventually punching holes in the intestines through which the intestinal contents leak into the abdomen. That's just a little fatal without surgery.
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.
According to Alive Past 5 .com
The Top Five Causes Of Unintentional Injury involving children:
1. Car Accidents: Kill 260,000 children a year and injure about 10 million children. They are the leading cause of death among children and a leading cause of child disability.
2. Drowning: Kills more than 175,000 children annually. Up to 3 million children each year survive a drowning incident. Due to brain damage in some survivors, nonfatal drowning has the highest average lifetime health and economic impact of any type of child injury.
3. Burns: Fire-related burns kill nearly 96,000 children a year.
4. Falls: Nearly 47,000 children fall to their deaths every year, but hundreds of thousands more children sustain serious injuries from a fall.
5. Poisoning: More than 45,000 children die each year from unintended poisoning.
Looks like there is a whole lot more that needs to be banned, or re-labeled. Think of the children.
Automatic weapons are not banned. Whoever gave you that idea. I have two of them sitting beside me right now. Well, actually, they are locked in my gun safe but all you need to do is get a tax stamp for them. I suggest you stop imagining things and take a trip to the machine gun festival and see how many private citizens own fully auto weapons. You might be surprised to find that ordinary citizens can and do own explosives too.
Sorry, it's you who didn't read the facts here. This administrative action is against _all_ buckyballs, not just the old 13+ ones (which were fixed in 2010)
You're looking at 2 year old actions and assuming they relate to today's one, but they're only tangentially related.
Here's the press release about the current action: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml12/12234.html
You'll note that in this release they point out that in both the previous actions, the company was cooperative. That is also pointed out in the actual complaint here: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml12/12234.pdf
The founder's bizzarre political allegations aside, they are not being misleading about the CPSC complaint.
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
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
"So what you're saying is that someone needs to make a gun that shoots Buckyballs, and then we can buy them again?"
They already do!
A "T"-size steel shotgun pellet is about Buckyball size. I don't have a reloading press or any Buckyballs to load, but it would be interesting to shoot a few rounds loaded with nonmagnetic steel shot and compare their pattern on target to that of Buckyballs.
http://www.thefirearmsforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=52612&stc=1&d=1318459735
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
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.
Generally if they're within innser-stomach distance from each other, they connect instantly and would pass through the digestive track together since it takes significant force to pinch them apart.
Their safety guidance for medical professionals seems to suggest otherwise:
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".
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!