Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Six Retailers Announce Recall of Buckyballs and Buckycubes

Posted by Soulskill on from the first-world-natural-selection dept.

thereitis writes "The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in cooperation with six retailers, is announcing the voluntary recall of all Buckyballs and Buckycubes high-powered magnet sets due to ingestion hazard. CPSC continues to warn that these products contain defects in the design, warnings and instructions, which pose a substantial risk of injury and death to children and teenagers. An administrative complaint has been filed which is rare, as CPSC has filed only four administrative complaints in the past 11 years." This follows last year's ban on buckyballs.

14 of 343 comments (clear)

  1. Seriously? by Red_Chaos1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why does this even need a warning? If you're too stupid not to understand to either A) not ingest these, or B) not give them to someone not old enough to know better, then by all means, swallow them all, then go get an MRI.

    1. Re:Seriously? by AK+Marc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you swallowed them all, you'd be fine. The way I described it to my wife is, eat one. Wait between 1 hour and 6 hours and eat another. Don't see a doctor for abrominal pain, and there's a reasonable chance you'll die. Multiples at once will not cause an issue. One a day will not cause an issue.

      My 5 year old gets to play with my set, but the 3 year old (who doesn't eat toys) has close supervision, especially since these look like dragee, candy he has had before.

      The problem is that a proper warning is hard when everything is deadly already. I'm surprised bottled water doesn't come with a DHMO warning label. When everything has a warning on it, adding a real warning to something that looks safe doesn't have proper effect. People don't read warnings when everything comes with 100 warnings.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    2. Re:Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nice work AC, being pedant while missing the point.

    3. Re:Seriously? by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      People don't read warnings when everything comes with 100 warnings.

      Very good point. Or they read them and laugh.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    4. Re:Seriously? by oiron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're assuming that the reason for the warnings is to save lives...

      It's actually purely to get themselves off the hook after lives are lost. Plausible deniability!

    5. Re:Seriously? by Fuzzums · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Really?! Now that wouldn't be very smart, would it?
      Just like swallowing magnets in the first place.

      I think he did mean MRI for exactly that reason :)

      (My apologies for my sarcasm)

      --
      Privacy is terrorism.
    6. Re:Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nope, my boy, you clearly haven't been to an MRI scan before. Just try to go into the chamber with your glasses on, and see the reaction of the operator.

      Nope, my boy, you clearly haven't been exposed to sarcasm before. Just try and go on Slashdot without it, and see the reaction of the intertubes.

    7. Re:Seriously? by Bengie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      CPSC has received 54 reports of children and teens ingesting this product, with 53 of these requiring medical interventions.

      Sounds like Darwinism in action. Young children, I can understand, but teens?

    8. Re: Seriously? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This doesn't appear to be the case. Look, for example at this reference, where several magnets had stuck together and yet caused problems. These appear to have been larger than buckyballs, but the idea is that they can loop back and pinch the bowel even if they are stuck together.

      Even a cursory glance at the literature is a bit scary. The problem is that MOST things that kids swallow are pretty harmless and therefore not brought to anyone's attention. We don't know the numbers of kids that swallow magnets yet have no problems - they certainly exist - so the reporting bias is going to be fairly high.

      But I personally would keep kids away from these things. They just don't need to play with them just yet.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    9. Re:Seriously? by makomk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nope, the problem is that people are idiots, even smart people. On one of the previous /. discussions there were a surprising number of people who posted comments talking about how they'd swallowed all kinds of metal objects as kids, many of which were sharp, and swallowing something round like Buckyballs is no big deal - it's just the nanny state kicking up a fuss about nothing. They did this in response to an article which described, in fairly graphic detail, exactly why swallowing strong magnets was more dangerous than other small metal objects and the actual injuries that had resulted from it.

  2. Yay, we can stop this pernicious danger! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But if it's guns, well, we can't even suggest that background checks should be implemented or the NRA will unleash a titanic fury of political money to get what they want.

    1. Re:Yay, we can stop this pernicious danger! by Z34107 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Relax. We're laughing that "think of the children" claimed your toys, too.

      --
      DATABASE WOW WOW
  3. ffs by maliqua · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is it the governments job to parent. keep an eye on kids, teenagers? lol teenagers if they eat them that's natural selection

  4. Re:A growing problem by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Smoking is a problem. Motor vehicle accidents are a problem. Guns related deaths (some say it isn't) are a problem.

    A product that has sold 2.2million sets resulting in 33 surgical procedures and 1 death since 2010 is NOT a problem.