
Feds file suit against Buckyballs, retailers ban product - pwg
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/story/2012-07-25/buckyballs-ban/56481316/1
======
knowtheory
So, what happens in animals who swallow magnets is that on occasion, two
magnets or a magnet and another object can be in different windy bits of the
intestinal tract and stick together, pinching two otherwise unconnected parts
of the intestine together, sometimes kinking them together sufficiently to
cause a blockage, which doctors say could cause perforation of the intestine
or other very bad things.

So as many wild accusations folks want to level at the government over this
there is a medical rational for their action.

See:
[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57390647-10391704/3-y...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57390647-10391704/3-year-
old-swallows-37-buckyball-magnets-survives/)

(and sure you can claim this is just bad parenting, but look how many folks in
this thread don't understand that this could be a threat)

~~~
irq
Some animals are purposely fed magnets to improve their health. For example,
the Cow Magnet:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_magnet>

~~~
joshschreuder
It's only one magnet though, more could span a pipe and cause a blockage or
trap internal linings as described above.

~~~
irq
The cows have magnets because they eat metal. The danger for humans isn't just
2 magnets, it's 1 magnet + something ferrous, of which a magnet is just one
possibility.

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nshepperd
Interesting application of what I might call the "visible effect bias" here.
(See: "That Which is Seen and That Which is not Seen"
<http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html>)

The CPSC sues, complaining that warning labels are ineffective, because
parents introduce the toys to their children anyway. The warning labels are
ineffective because almost every toy small enough to be put in a mouth has a
warning label attached to the effect of "choking hazard; not suitable for
children", even if the toys are perfectly safe (which is to say, harm almost
never occurs).

Toys are attached with false warning labels because if by some chance a child
_does_ choke, either the parents or the CPSC can sue, citing the absence of
warning labels. The suitors can win even if the incident was unlikely, due to
hindsight bias. Hence, it costs the company nothing to exaggerate the danger
by adding a warning label, in order to protect themselves from liability.

So, what is seen by the regulatory system is that putting on a warning label
could have prevented such-and-such a case of choking/injury. What is not seen
is that adding redundant warning labels decreases the informational value of
true warnings, causing increased future cases of choking/injury from truly
dangerous products.

Ironically in this case the regulators then sue, arguing that warning labels
are insufficient because parents ignore them, due to a problem that was
_originally created_ by regulators being too eager to sue!

Now, I haven't looked for any data showing that this is what happened in this
case, but it seems to be a common pattern (for example, "may contain traces of
peanuts"; and excessive waiting times for FDA approval of livesaving drugs).

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Sanddancer
The CPSC does some fantastic things for product safety, but this isn't one of
them. In fact, some of the items they're complaining about are just plain
ridiculous; griping that a product was in a child-safe container seems beyond
silly.

Though this did bring up two thoughts near simultaneously. The first was an
onion article of ten years ago ( [http://www.theonion.com/articles/fun-toy-
banned-because-of-t...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/fun-toy-banned-
because-of-three-stupid-dead-kids,290/) ). The second being someone I know who
recently had emergency surgery after deciding that they would be an excellent
thing to sound with. While protecting kids is important, at the same time,
kids can and will do stupid things, and a few people swallowing them a year
does not seem to rise to the level of requiring a ban.

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anigbrowl
This is a nonsense suit. The first time we bought a box of these, one of the
first things we noticed was the warning about the dangers of strong magnets
and the risks of swallowing them in particular.

~~~
esrauch
I think the issue is that no parent can reasonably stop their kid from
swallowing these if the kid wants to; do you disagree with that? Note that
every McDonalds toy that is actually perfectly safe for young kids has a
swallowing/choking hazard, so it's pretty much guaranteed that people can't
know that they have to take those seriously in this case.

~~~
anigbrowl
The packaging tells you very clearly (before you open it) what can happen if
swallowed, and why. It also says that it's not suitable for children under 14.
And I do disagree that you can keep small kids from swallowing: _do not allow
them to play with it_. I'm infuriated by the idea that nobody can be allowed
to buy these things because some parents are too stupid/irresponsible.

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patio11
One wonders how many children swallow, say, thumb tacks and whether this makes
a prima facie case for the government to sue the manufacturers of all small
pointy things.

Sure enough, if one Googles [swallowed thumb tack]...

~~~
patio11
On investigation, and somewhat surprisingly to me, it seems that medical
experts legitimately believe that swallowing these _particular_ small metal
objects are worse than swallowing garden-variety small metal objects because
if you swallow e.g. 5 BB pellets then you'll pass 5 BB pellets but if you
swallow 5 high-powered magnets you now have one single clump o' metal which is
large/heavy/sharp enough to damage your intestinal tract.

I probably still wouldn't ban them but, hey, worth noting.

[http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/story/2012-0...](http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/story/2012-07-25/buckyballs-
ban/56481316/1)

~~~
evdawg
I think the big difference is that thumb tacks are not a toy. These are a toy.
They're marketed as a toy. They're given to children _as a toy_.

~~~
unreal37
I own a set of these. They are not given to children young enough to put them
in their mouth. Parents who do so are irresponsible.

~~~
mturmon
I have a set too, and they are cool. I let my six-year-old play with them,
because I trust her. She knows not to let her friends play with them. In the
light of this suit, I'll have to reconsider that.

They are really easy to lose, and if lost, they can be picked up and swallowed
by a kid, and their parent would never know. The particular danger of strong,
tiny magnets is quite non-obvious (inspecting the comments here makes that
clear), even spooky.

They are commonly sold at science centers, near children's toys, another
indication that the marketing was done to kids, and not as just a desk toy.

I've been dreading the day one of the ones I've lost gets sucked into the
vacuum...no telling how much damage it could do if it sticks onto a gear.

I'm not surprised about the suit.

~~~
mkramlich
> I have a set too, and they are cool. I let my six-year-old play with them,
> because I trust her.

kids are random. much more so than adults. I strongly recommend you never let
her access those things again. there's only downside, and the upside (fun,
diversion, learning about magnets) can be had from alternate things, or at
some future date when her judgment is better. plus give something to a kid,
and it could easily end up in the hands/mouth of other kids. kids are
_random_. they/we start life in fact with our heads full of all sorts of
irrational/mythical beliefs, and a blurry line between imagination and
reality. For example, the classic kid thought meme: if something looks like
candy, it probably tastes like candy, it probably is candy.

~~~
fmax30
Woah, this totally reminded me of the time when i ate a brufen tablet when i
was little thinking that it was candy. It even had the sugar coating. So
basically kids are usually dumb and prone to random acts of craziness .

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reader5000
Tell you what. Wrap some gun powder around them, call them bucky bullets, sell
em over the internet, you'll be untouchable in America.

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SlipperySlope
I was scared for a moment! I thought the headline referred to the C-60
fullerene supplement I've been taking for a few weeks. Carbon buckeyballs in
an olive oil suspension dramatically increase mouse lifespan in a _single_
recent study.

Whew...

~~~
th0ma5
Well, it isn't looking good for C-60:
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16709433> it has been six years and I have
yet to hear any news about the bass. In all seriousness, would organ binding
from within be an aspect of "toxicity"?

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msie
Children will do the craziest things if left unwatched for even a second. This
year alone I've heard about kids drowning in backyard pools, a kid dancing on
an air conditioner on a window sill (was caught by a passerby) and a kid dying
because a soccer net fell on her.

~~~
jobu
Agreed. If my youngest makes it to adulthood it will be a miracle - she's very
active and even more impulsive. I love her like crazy, but every day she
survives is a combination of luck and (I like to think) good parenting.

Last week I was talking to her while I was grilling and when I turned around
she was standing on the railing of our deck (15 feet above a concrete patio).

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midwestwebdev
If parents don't understand why a small magnetic ball bearing would be bad for
their children to play with, then they're --- hate to be rude --- stupid. And
their stupidity should not be used to punish private companies who make a
perfectly safe product when used correctly by its intended audience.

They already have warning label, why isn't that enough?

With the economy hurting like it is, I can't figure out why the US government
would be doing something as stupid as this. They're threatening the livelihood
of a private business.

It just makes no sense to me. I miss personal accountability and
responsibility.

~~~
mindslight
> _With the economy hurting like it is, I can't figure out why the US
> government would be doing something as stupid as this._

Because agency funding is dependent on the agency's relevance. If government
actually worked as advertised, every solved problem would result in it
shrinking. In reality, it identifies new "problems" to perpetuate its
existence.

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discountgenius
My box had a very visible anti-ingestion warning label. However, nobody
mentioned anything about the top layer of chrome wearing out. I stopped using
them when I kept getting small shards of metal embedded in my fingers.

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lyetzz
That's right - Punish the company, not the parents who can't supervise their
children.

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csmeder
Why is swallowing them so dangerous? Don't kids swallow pennies and what not?
Then it leaves the body through normal bodily function?

~~~
csmeder
Hmm... <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXmmkH2Y7M0> it turns out its when you
swallow 2 or more they pinch and squeeze the intestines.

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d2vid
I found a dime when I was a child and swallowed it - maybe my parents should
have sued the US Mint.

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slig
Won't someone think of the children?

~~~
loceng
I think we should ban knives, and hot surfaces - to protect children of
course.

~~~
esrauch
This is a totally ridiculous comparison. I'm not in favor of the ban, but
comparing a knife (something dangerous that no sane parent would let their kid
play with) to this (something less dangerous that is explicitly a toy that
most parents would have no problem letting their kids play with) is
ridiculous.

~~~
muyyatin
So if 12 parents let their children play with knives (and the children were
harmed) like the 12 instances for Buckyballs, we should ban all knives?

It seems like parents ignoring warning labels on an item not marketed towards
children is the main issue (I wouldn't necessarily say the magnets were less
dangerous either).

~~~
esrauch
The difference is solely intent of the product. If bleach was being sold as a
toy then it would be banned; it's only allowed because its not a toy. Lawn
darts are less dangerous than knives and they were banned because they are
being sold as a toy.

There is a certain threshold of danger that we accept for useful products like
knives and bleach; if handled properly then there is no problem. Young
children aren't expected to handle them properly. Buckyballs have no practical
use and are toys that _are_ expected to be given to children, so a similar
level of danger is unacceptable.

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brador
It says not for children on the box and if you have a 13 year old who's
swallowing magnets, well, then you have a problem.

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pessimizer
I can't believe they waited this long. I'd be surprised if a lot of adults
haven't swallowed these, too. Everybody knows that BBs and pennies pass
easily, so why wouldn't you think that about magnets? It isn't like the
warnings are printed on every ball, and there's nothing intuitive about their
danger.

Tiny, strong BB magnets can have no place in a house that ever has kids in it.
It's not safe to have them in or on daddy's desk, or anywhere else. Maybe in
the gun safe.

Also, I always assumed that the Fuller estate got a cut of this. Pretty rotten
all around.

edit: swallowing small strong magnets is a fairly unique, well known, and long
standing danger. When I was a kid, a lot of plastic items were made magnetic
by gluing in tiny (maybe 3/4 cm diameter) disks. After a lot of resectioning
of the necrotic bowels of a lot of children, and a lot of death amongst both
children and animals, this ended. Good riddance. It's safer to let your kid
play with a bag of broken glass.

~~~
mistercow
They're also both an educational and creative toy that can introduce kids to
the counterintuitive ways that magnets interact, while teaching them to build
things within unusual constraints. Yes, they are dangerous if swallowed, just
like a lot of other things that we have around our houses all the time. Keep
them out of reach of young children, sure, but this is a _tiny_ risk that has
been blown out of proportion by the media. Last year, over 1,600 kids under 6
were poisoned by household cleaners... just in Washington DC.

As for "why would you assume that you can't swallow it?", I just don't even
what to say. Don't just assume that you can safely swallow shit?

~~~
mturmon
Magformers are a safe and interesting magnetic toy that offers that magnet
magic you mention. I think the point is that some designs are inherently
unsafe. They need to go back to the drawing board.

~~~
mistercow
But it's _marginally_ unsafe, and the risk is clearly labeled. As long as
people are being informed of the moderate danger (and they are), it is nuts
for the government to come in and try to take these off the market. The world
is full of dangerous crap, and if you step back and try to keep a little
perspective, this desk toy shouldn't even show up on your radar.

------
briandear
Don't 5 gallon buckets kill more people than magnets?

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gadders
In the UK, this is called the Nanny State. I though the USA was immune to this
rubbish.

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beedogs
I know this is going to sound harsh, but maybe if your kid choked to death on
a magnetic toy, he or she just wasn't of sturdy enough stock to begin with. In
the brains department.

I wish the Feds would go after actual problems with the same fervor they
tackle this kind of crap.

~~~
joechip
Clearly you don't have any children!

