Six Retailers Announce Recall of Buckyballs and Buckycubes

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.

Comments

Seriously?

[Red_Chaos1]

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.

Re:Seriously?

[AK Marc]

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.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of a warning I saw on a treadmill recently. "Cease use immediately and consult a physician if you experience any of these symptoms: dizzyness, light headedness or shortness of breath."

On a treadmill? Really?!

Re:Seriously?

[oiron]

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!

Re:Seriously?

[AK Marc]

53% of slashdotters get shortness of breath looking at a treadmill.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Seriously?

[__aaltlg1547]

Those seem stupid, but for at least two there's a reason: peanuts are legumes, and people can be allergic to either tree nuts or peanuts, or both; and yoghurts can be soy-based rather than dairy-based.

Soy based yoghurt? OH MY GOD, WHERE IS MY GUN?

Yay, we can stop this pernicious danger!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

ffs

[maliqua]

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

death to children and teenagers.

[Osgeld]

children, maybe teenagers?

come on thats not saftey that Darwin, if your teenager is eating magnets then wtf are they going to do with a car, or the right to vote OMFG

Re: death to children and teenagers.

[White Flame]

The situation that I heard about was teenagers (presumably at the lower end of that age range) accidentally ingesting them from putting them on their lips, tongue or teeth in trying to simulate piercings & jewelry.

It's still absolutely retarded that the CPSC is so bent on banning these things. I think the extent of their influence is getting them off retail store shelves, not outlawing their sale completely.

"At least" they've only gone after Buckyballs, not the other manufacturers. I bought mine from NeoCube, as they're by far the cheapest for their large combo set. Buckyballs are expensive. As NeoCube and others (like Zen Magnets) generally only sell online, I'm not sure if they're in the CPSC's reach.

Incredibly stupid

[Zaldarr]

There was a big hoo-ha in Australia about 6mo ago where a 12 year old kid swallowed a bunch of them that were sitting on a high shelf in his father's locked study. So the kid, who is 12 and should have known better, went into his fathers office, climbed up the shelf, pulled down metal balls and proceeded to eat them. The mother went on to campaign for them to be pulled from Australian stores, which they were 4 months later.

Now the infuriating thing about this is that because of one *incredibly* stupid kid everybody doesn't get some awesome toys. My 26 year old brother in law is pretty annoyed because he spends a lot of his free time tinkering with big blocks of them and now he can't get anymore. These are not children's toys and it is foolish to ban them entirely because some dumbass kid was stupid. By that logic you'd have to ban every adult product on the logic that it was not safe for children

Re:A growing problem

[thegarbz]

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.

Re:Over my dead body

[cffrost]

You can take my Buckballs when you dig them out of my cold, rotting intestines. ;o)