

CEO Craig Zucker on the Demise of Buckyballs - dsr12
http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/11/craig-zucker-buckyballs

======
tptacek
Zucker is being a little misleading about this. His firm did indeed have a
long relationship with the CPSC, and throughout that relationship, no matter
what their firm did to mitigate the risks their magnets had to children,
reports of life threatening injuries not only continued but _increased_. The
CPSC didn't kill their product for sport; they acted based on the empirical
evidence.

You'd wonder, reading this article, what problem CPSC had with a simple
magnetic toy set. After all, nowhere in this article do the words "surgery" or
"intestinal perforation" occur. The problem is simple. A child can swallow a
penny, or even a nail(!), and the ER doctors will send them home to wait for
it to pass. But if you happen to swallow two tiny rare earth magnets, what can
happen is that they latch together on opposing sides of loops of small
intestine, gradually digging their way through the tissue and spilling gut
bacteria into the abdominal cavity, which results in sepsis.

 _"[W]hen these high-­‐powered magnets are swallowed, endoscopic or surgical
intervention is required in nearly all cases to prevent bowel damage." -
Nerissa S. Bauer, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor Indiana University School of
Medicine_

Skateboarding is probably statistically more dangerous than tiny rare earth
magnets. But parents know how to mitigate the risks of skateboarding. My guess
is that 80% of the parents on Hacker News don't even know that swallowing a
tiny smooth round magnet is more dangerous to a toddler than swallowing a
nail. Certainly teenagers don't understand this, because they were using
Buckyball magnets to hold fake lip piercing studs.

Zucker's firm attempted to address the problem with warning labels. But how do
you put warning labels on a set of 100 tiny metal balls? Even if the label
read "DO NOT EVER LEAVE THESE OUT OF THE BOX", which they don't and can't
because keeping them out of the box is a big part of the point of the toy,
what good is that going to do when a teenager buys a set and leaves it on his
desk in the house he shares with a 4 year old? Because that is not an uncommon
scenario.

In the end, the issue here is not that the government thinks it should be
unlawful to sell small rare earth magnets. It's that the government thinks
companies shouldn't be able to profit from selling them as direct-to-consumer
toys and novelty items. If CSPC is seeing marked increases in injuries due to
magnets now, when the products are in their early-adopter infancy (there are,
according to Zen Magnets, only two companies selling sets like this as
consumer products), the CPSC can reasonably assume that the damage would be
much worse as the products mainstreamed.

Buy the magnets online, or from a lab supply store, and give them the respect
they deserve.

~~~
pdeuchler
So, essentially, Save The Children?

Besides the fact, this regulation seems almost pointless. If you can still
sell these small round magnets, just not as novelty and toy items, then they
will still get into the hands of consumers. As the article mentioned, even
with severe restrictions on where they were placed in stores and even with
them being absent in physical stores _at all_ sales still held steady, clearly
signifying a demand for this product.

At best this ruling is ineffectual and will end up in a cat and mouse game
between manufacturers and the CPSC which could potentially end up in heavily
overreaching legislation. At worst it's a dangerous precedent set to control
the kind of things we give to our children.

I don't need the mayor of New York telling me how much to drink, and I don't
need the government telling me what to buy.

Food for thought: The CPSC seems to be fine with the warning labels on
cigarettes.

~~~
mturmon
I think the government is actually performing a useful service here.

We all know that people have a hard time identifying and reasoning about high-
cost, low-probability risks. The government, because it's aggregating numbers
over practically all the hospitals in the country, can identify these oddball
cases -- these cases are hard for individuals to discern.

So, they found one -- a service in itself. But, what to do? I don't want to
have to keep track of all these oddball risks (un-obvious, and with no
significant upside). So, as in the case of various bassinet, bicycle,
handrail, and staircase design errors, they are made off limits.

Easier for everyone. Next problem.

~~~
pdeuchler
There's a difference between identifying risks and forcing people to act risk
averse.

I'm all for the government continuing to act as a consumer's advocate, as they
should be. However I do not feel comfortable when the government makes these
decisions for me.

~~~
tptacek
They haven't made any decision for you. Even after the rule goes into effect,
you'll still be allowed to buy & sell magnets of the exact same size,
strength, and finish as the Buckyballs.

The CPSC ruling is only devastating to Buckyballs because they are primarily
marketed and sold as toys, and when they stop being able to do that, far fewer
people will buy them.

~~~
pdeuchler
I was more talking in generalities in that specific comment, though the
government has certainly effected my decision when buying similar magnets,
which is arguably just as offensive.

I still fail to see your logic that this legislation will prevent these
magnets from being sold to people who want them as a novelty. When taken
completely out of physical stores sales held steady. The market has clearly
communicated a demand, and they will buy them whether they are marketed as
novelty toys are not.

If the CPSC's main goal is to prevent Buckyballs from coming into contact with
toddlers this band aid legislation seems like a laughable effort.

~~~
tptacek
The CPSC doesn't care if you buy magnets! They only care about how they're
marketed! The CPSC is not trying to keep magnets away from _you_. They are not
trying to abolish any kind of magnet. This isn't the war on drugs. They care
exclusively about one specific packaging.

And, if you're a complete freaking moron and buy magnets and stuff them into
the mouths of your children, well, not to sound too callous, but the CPSC
isn't going to care so much about those magnets.

They'll probably care more about the quantity of lead paint you must have
somehow ingested to make such a dumb decision.

~~~
yew
The CPSC wants to ban marketing of such products as toys or puzzles. We all
(or, I'll concede, perhaps only most of us) agree that this is so, and no
more!

The issue is that I think that said ban will affect the structure of the
market for such products, which (if I am correct in thinking this) will affect
me by raising the cost of said products and reducing the quality of said
products and related accessories/packaging.

Given that I regard the CPSC's process of making decision _based on the
existing statistics_ as misinformed, it seems entirely reasonable to me to
regard this as a problem. Where _exactly_ am I going wrong here?

~~~
tptacek
I don't think there's anything wrong with this reasoning at all! It seems
well-informed and carefully reasoned. I disagree with it, but so what?

~~~
yew
> I disagree with it . . .

Because . . . ?

> . . . but so what?

Well, I obviously care somewhat about your opinion. Otherwise I wouldn't have
posted all this stuff. And you obviously care somewhat about the existence of
this marketing campaign (that being essentially what this piece of news is).
Otherwise _you_ wouldn't have posted all this stuff.

------
gav
When I was trying to look up an article from about the call to "redesign" hot
dogs, I found this quote:

"No parents can watch all of their kids 100% of the time. The best way to
protect kids is to design these risks out of existence." \-- Gary Smith,
director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's
Hospital in Columbus, Ohio

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-02-22-1Achok...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-02-22-1Achoke22_ST_N.htm)

I feel that this is a sad state of affairs.

~~~
anothermachine
Why? Seems like a smart solution to a problem.

We have designed many of the risks out of cars too, and I for one appreciate
that.

~~~
Gormo
It is a smart solution to the problem, to an extent: mitigating risks in ways
that are unrelated to the intended functionality of the product is usually a
good idea. But mitigating risks inherent to the nature of the product in a way
that reduces the product's functionality, reliability, or adaptability for
other purposes isn't an appropriate solution.

More broadly, and more importantly, designing risk out of our environment
gives us less fodder for the development of our own faculties for risk
judgment, and therefore makes us more dependent on external articles and less
so on intelligence and caution for our safety, and this ironically makes is
_more_ risky for us to explore aspects of the world which haven't been already
made artificially safe, and more subject to danger if the external sources of
risk should shift.

In other words, maintaining risk-free environments ultimately makes us less
adaptable, makes the prospect of change _riskier_ , and therefore reduces our
evolutionary fitness.

------
cpeterso
The health risk of swallowing Buckyballs is more serious than just swallowing
a marble. If you swallow two or more magnets, they can get stuck together as
they wind their way through your intestines and pinch holes through your
intestinal wall.

~~~
jlgreco
Lets be honest, unless you are a toddler _(and these magnet toy companies are
very careful to make it known these are not for children, so if a child gets a
hold of these an adult is to blame...)_ , you are probably not in the habit of
eating things just because they are small. What are they going to do, jump
down your throat?

~~~
tptacek
Let's be honest, virtually no teenager in the world could be trusted to ensure
that no 2 out of the 216 tiny rolling metal balls that come in one of these
sets ever got lost in their house. Meanwhile, yes, putting shiny metal things
into their mouths is essentially the full time job of a toddler.

The problem isn't that magnets are inherently unsafe, or even that tiny round
magnets are unsafe. It's that _this particular packaging_ of tiny round
magnets is unsafe.

There's a lot of really fun things a conscientious person can do with fire,
electricity, strong acid, or liquid nitrogen. But nobody's been dumb enough to
put them in colorful packages with "Not For Children Under 14" on the label.

~~~
jlgreco
There are a hell of a lot of things that we could ban if we wanted to make
sure children never found dangerous things. The only reason small magnet toys
get grief is because they are new and novel enough to stand out from the crowd
and get the attention.

~~~
tptacek
That's a viewpoint I probably can't talk you out of. But just to give a
concise repetition of my viewpoint: the reason small magnet toys get grief is
the gap between how dangerous they actually are and how not dangerous they
appear to be.

~~~
jlgreco
There are _thousands_ of poisoning deaths every year^. Yet we still market
children's vitamins that look like candy in drug bottles similar to those used
for prescription medication, and we still sell industrial cleaners with
colouring that should make kool-aid jealous.

Nobody cares, because everybody is used to these things. We are satisfied when
manufactures put nasty labels on the bottles.

There is a gap between how dangerous magnets technically can be when ingested,
and the actual harm they are causing. Yeah, if you swallow them you are pretty
much due for an ER visit... but in reality this is an edge case that we should
not be wasting our time worrying about.

^
[http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/Poisoning/poiso...](http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/Poisoning/poisoning-
factsheet.htm)

~~~
tptacek
Parents do not think cleaning chemicals are safe for children, and keep
vitamins in the medicine cabinet.

~~~
jlgreco
Candy shaped vitamins are not dangerous in and of themselves, but they train
children to think that candy comes from medicine bottles. You could make a
similar argument for tick-tacks and any number of other candies that look like
medicine capsules.

Parents give their children tick-tacks (because it's just candy, so why not?)
and children see their parents getting "candy" out of medicine bottles. When
some of them inevitably come across dangerous medication (which happen to be
small and easy to lose...), some of them will pop it in their mouth with the
fairly reasonable expectation that it will taste good.

How parents perceive the danger of any of these things is not particularly
relevant, particularly in the case of medication. The question we should be
asking is how much harm are they _actually causing_.

Cleaning supply marketing and children vitamins cause _far_ more deaths than
magnets could ever dream of causing.

~~~
tptacek
I understand that you find this argument to be compelling, but as a parent and
a friend of many other parents, you're just not going to convince me that
parents think cleaning chemicals are safe, or that parents think children's
vitamins are safe. I am terrified of children's vitamins (iron poisoning!),
and they're not even empirically dangerous to my middle-school-aged kids.

Incidentally: I just looked it up, and it looks like children's vitamins? Also
less dangerous, epidemiologically, than rare earth magnets. I find that
surprising; maybe you can find a better study that shows how often they kill
kids.

~~~
jlgreco
You seem to be misunderstanding me. Maybe children vitamins are dangerous
themselves, maybe they aren't. I am giving them the benefit of the doubt and
assuming they are relatively safe.

The damage done by children vitamins, primarily the ones that are dressed up
to look like candy, is actually dealt out by the prescription medication that
children swallow and die. The danger children vitamins pose would still be
present if they were nothing but sugar pills (and sugar pills that look
exactly like medication are dangerous as well).

How many parents of poisoned children have heard _"I thought it was candy!"_?

That you and the other parents you know are reasonably paranoid about the
danger of vitamins and other medications is commendable, but _thousands_ of
kids are still being lethally poisoned. If the injuries to children from
magnets are enough to concern us, then the poisonings should concern us even
more so.

~~~
tptacek
If your argument is that parents are cavalier about _medicine_ , and not just
candy-flavored vitamins, I'm sorry to say I'm even less persuaded.

Again: I perceive your argument to be that if the government is going to
regulate products, it should sort products by the number of injuries or
fatalities they cause and proceed from the top of the list downwards.

My argument is that this isn't the government's M.O.; they don't see it as
their mission to eliminate all risk, or even the risk of bad parenting.
Instead, their issue is with products that appear to be much much safer than
they are. Their concern is literally constrained to _marketing_ , and nothing
else. I do not see how you get around the fact that tiny round rare earth
magnets sold in sets of 200 are, in actual fact, way the hell more dangerous
than their colorful fun packaging makes them seem. Zen Magnets appears to
suggest wearing them!

~~~
jlgreco
No, my argument is not that parents are cavalier about medicine.

I think I have done all that reasonably I can to make my point of view clear,
short of writing an essay, but it is still not understood. I'm not continuing
this.

------
tedivm
Buckyballs are extremely low quality and fall apart quite easily. Zenmagnets
are much higher quality, and seem to be taking more and more of the market
share away from the Buckyball guys. I think that may explain why Buckyballs
folded while Zenmagnets are still fighting this (
<http://www.zenmagnets.com/index.php?p=1_20_November_Update> ).

~~~
eropple
I have some of both and don't really notice a difference. I have some of the
Buckycubes--they're pretty nifty.

~~~
tedivm
I should probably point out that I'm a little obsessed with them- I have a few
hundred Buckyballs (various colors and stuff), as well as a couple thousand of
the Zenmagnets. The big differences really come in when you're trying to make
something delicate or with a larger structure.

One major issue is consistency- the sizes between colors or even individual
balls in the same set varies quite a bit. If you create a flat plane (one
height, whatever length and width) or magnets with both the Zenmagnets and the
Buckyballs, the Zenmagnets will be level all around while the Buckyballs have
different sized. This causes some to bulge out, making that level plane
actually quiet bumpy looking.

The other problem is that the coating they use over the actual neodymium is
very cheap. The longer you own the Buckyballs the more of it breaks off. The
Zenmagnets are going to last quite a bit longer, and not break down in your
hands just because you let them snap together too hard.

------
davorb
This was featured on Reason.tv. Sad to see them lose this battle.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KONkQx0wm1c>

------
patrickgzill
So now, only outlaws will have Buckyballs?

~~~
tptacek
No, small sets of 200 tiny round rare earth magnets remain perfectly legal to
possess or even to sell. The only thing you can't do is market them as desk
toys.

------
Gring
Buckyballs are just magnets of a certain material, shape, and size. There are
countless shops on- and offline that sell the exactly same product, among
other types, shapes and sizes, to consumers and professionals, sometimes to
both.

How is the CPSC planning to implement this ban? Prohibit this exact
combination? Or ban everybody that sells them in a package that looks vaguely
toy-like? Are they ok if the packaging looks boring and industrial? Where do
they draw the line? The CPSC is going to have a lot of explaining to do.

~~~
tptacek
It's not complicated. It will simply become unlawful to sell "aggregations of
separable, permanent, magnetic objects intended or marketed by the
manufacturer primarily as a manipulative or construction desk toy for general
entertainment, such as puzzle working, sculpture building, mental stimulation,
or stress relief."

Contrary to knee-jerk Internet opinion, the CPSC is not out to rid the country
of small round magnets.

