Rare Earth Magnets Pose Threat To Children 284
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Many of today's toys contain rare-earth magnets which are much more powerful than the magnets of yesteryear and the magnets pose a serious threat to children when more than one is ingested because as the magnets attract one another they can cause a range of serious injuries, including holes through internal organs, blood poisoning and death (PDF). Braden Eberle, 4, swallowed two tiny magnets from his older brother's construction kit on two successive days last spring and his mother's first reaction was that the magnet would pass through her son's system without a problem. "People swallow pennies of the same size every day," said Jill Eberle. "They're smaller than an eraser." But next morning, with Braden still in pain, the family's doctor told them to go straight to the emergency room where an X-ray revealed two magnets were stuck together. "They were attracted to each other with the wall of each segment they were in stuck together," said Dr. Sanjeev Dutta, the pediatric surgeon at Good Samaritan Hospital who would operate on Braden later that day. "Because they were so powerful, the wall of the intestine was getting squeezed, squeezed, squeezed, and then it just necrosed, or kind of rotted away, and created a hole between the two." The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says at least 33 children have been injured from ingesting magnets (PDF) with a 20 month-old dying, and at least 19 other children requiring surgery."
Rare Earth Magnets (Score:5, Funny)
So, ask for them to be done medium?
Parents (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Parents (Score:5, Informative)
You can't keep your eye on your kids all the time. Especially if they're in a 'safe' area playing with age appropriate toys.
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Re:Parents (Score:5, Funny)
My three year old even knows that, but when the new baby arrived, she started imitating all kinds of stuff. That meant also putting this in her mouth whenever we were (yes) looking. Still, I agree with you here. I never leave small items around (or magnets for that matter) where the kids can get them.
Btw, the button 'quote parent' seemed really appropriate here ;)
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The toys with magnets are all labelled for older children. The problem occurs when a younger child get hold of age inappropriate toys that were purchased for older siblings. The supervision comes in the parent making sure the young child is not playing with toys designed for older children.
If one has children of varying ages and puts all their toys together in the same room it is very easy to mix toys with different age restrictions together. It is also difficult to get older children to put away toys that
Re:Parents (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how much you watch kids, they will ALWAYS find that split second they need to put something in their mouth.
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Yeah, that's what the catholic church keeps repeating, too.
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Kids often use unbreakable toys to break other toys.
Re:Parents (Score:5, Insightful)
My takehome from this article is that if I still had toddlers, I would not keep toys with strong little magnets in my house. And this is a very good time of year to run this type of story.
Re:Dawin will sort this out (Score:5, Insightful)
Could you come down off your 4-difit UID geek high-horse and for a picosecond entertain the idea that not everything is so easily controlled in a highly dynamic nonlinear multivariate system commonly referred to as a child-rearing household in a developed nation?
Raising children is hard (I say this as a mid-forties bachelor not living in my parents' basement), and I would never dare to presume that avoiding all accidents is possible regarding the welfare of a child. I'd doubly not dare to presume such if I were a parent.
Ignorant as I am, I at least know better than to cast smug blame on the parents of children who have undergone a medical emergency. For all that is good, please follow these steps:
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But I'll bet you paid a lot more attention to the items you knew could be dangerous and not so much to the generally harmless ones.
Many parents aren't aware that rare earth magnets are not like the chunks of hard rubber or ferrite that they had when they were kids. Once made aware they'll put them in the more attention category and we'll see a lot less incidents.
You mean like the warnings? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You mean like the warnings? (Score:5, Funny)
I think the key problem here is that the children don't have warning labels attached. I propose that in future hospitals tattoo babies shortly after, or if possible before, birth with something along the lines of "WARNING: child may do dangerous things". Billions of other warning labels would then be unnecessary.
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Re:You mean like the warnings? (Score:5, Funny)
Check the Consumer Protection Agency. There might be a recall on your kid.
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So the source for this is a personal injury lawyer. How many parents will feed magnets to their kids and give him a call?
Not just small children (Score:2)
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These can be used to stimulate a tongue piercing . . .
You meant that . . .
Level of risk (Score:5, Insightful)
The pdf says they are aware of a total of 33 injuries and one death in the US ever due to magnet ingestion. Out of a 300 million population that is a vanishingly small risk. Meanwhile there are something like 30,000 accidental poisonings each year. Are we really paying attention to the right things?
Re:Level of risk (Score:5, Informative)
Top five causes of injury death (source World Report on Child Injury Prevention 2008)
Road crashes: 260,000 children a year
Drowning: 175,000 children a year
Burns: 96,000 children a year
Falls: 47,000 children a year
Poisoning: 45,000 children each year
Yup worrying about rare earth magnets is pretty useless.
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no, it means there is no need for a special child cyanide regulation.
I'm not certain that is good comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a better comparison would be deaths (or injuries) compared to prevalence of the items in question. Of the 300,000,000 people in the US, only a small fraction live in an environment with access to rare earth magnets. But most, if not all, live in an environment where there are poisonous substances. Not to mention that according to the CDC, the overwhelming number of non-intentional poisonings are drug overdoses.
I'm not certain that we're talking about the same class of problems here.
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33 children, not 33 people. There are no 300000 children in the USA.
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Of the 300,000,000 people in the US, only a small fraction live in an environment with access to rare earth magnets.
You can buy them in any shop just around the corner ... so I don'T get your point.
Maybe it's just me, but... (Score:4, Funny)
I think this somehow makes neodymium magnets seem even cooler. They've killed children... not by poisoning them, but by magnetism alone.
Not to sound harsh, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Two successive days last spring (Score:2)
"Last spring", in this case, means April, 2007.
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Which would be about the time that magnets were no longer allowed in toys for small children, and Magnetix (toys for children that included magnets) were recalled [cpsc.gov] and relabeled for age 6+. (This was an extension of the recall from 2006 [msn.com]) Mattel then recalled their toys with magnets in the fall of 2007. [mattel.com] ... etc.
Are we still having problems with this 5 years later?
Are we going to need to havea story on here next week that small items are a choking hazard and shouldn't be given to children under 3?
Kids are over-sheltered (Score:5, Insightful)
There was dangerous stuff in there (power tools and old cans of freon that he never got rid of for some reason) but he told me never to play with that and I was smart enough to listen. When he showed me what a table saw could do to a piece of scrap wood in under 2 seconds I quickly learned that I shouldn't put my finger there. The problem today is that we're treating kids who should be old enough for this stuff like toddlers. (mostly because people have turned into litigious bastards... true, they always were but it seems like it's gotten worse in the last decade or two) As a result, kids are way behind the curve on development than they were when I was growing up because their development is being stunted. If you took a typical sheltered kid from today and moved him back in time about 20 years, he would probably be considered slow and undeveloped.
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Today people are probably worried that if they take their kid to the ER with a minor injury and the kid says "I was playing in the workshop" they'll get done for endangering a minor.
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Too true. And I've actually seen that happen here in Ontario(canada). Government is by far overreaching, and childrens aid(and it's various equivalents across north america) are full of people who think they know best because some kid got hurt, because the kid was doing something stupid therefor the parents are 100% at fault. Never mind that they'll turn a blind eye when parents are actually threatening their kids, then murder them. See the Shafia honor killings, where the CAS actually turned a blind e
Why is a four-year old (Score:2)
still swallowing things like magnets? Seems odd to me. That being said, there are also fake tongue piercing which are rare earth magnets too. Real easy to swallow and they wreak havoc inside the body as well. So I guess even as your child ages you have to constantly keep forbidding stuff.
They're only dangerous when they stick together. (Score:5, Funny)
Just tell your infant to only swallow one at a time. Problem solved!
Rename this article, IMMEDIATELY! (Score:3)
Rename it to "Rare Earth Magnets pose threat to children who ingest them" because otherwise you are wasting my time. My kid doesn't eat magnets and I've known about this hazard for a couple years.
This is not only OLD news, this is IRRELEVANT news to me that you misled me into re-reading.
So Many Possibilities... (Score:2)
Spoons Pose Threat To Children!
iPods Pose Threat To Children!
Diapers Pose Threat To Children!
Meteors Pose Threat To Children!
Internetz Pose Threat To Children!
So many possibilities for a sensational headline. Poor Timmy, how does he choose... so poorly, so often?.
Hmmm... (Score:2)
Typo in Headline (Score:4, Insightful)
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The headline should be: "Shit happens"
And the message of the article is: Do not swallow more than one rare-earth magnets.
From my point of view you should not swallow any magnet. And if your kid did swallow something you go to the hospital. And when they swallowed a meta object or a magnet, you should not use a MRT to find out where it is. But you know that, because you learned it in physics in school. And you learned in health that telling the doctor what happened might help him or her to determine the righ
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"Rare Earth Magnets" should read "Negligent Parents".
Also from the summary:
"People swallow pennies of the same size every day," said Jill Eberle.
I'm guessing the whole family is afflicted with pica [wikipedia.org].
Simple Solution, Duh. (Score:5, Funny)
Just heat the child up to above the Curie temperature of the magnets and they will fall right off!
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Retarded much? (Score:2)
Like almost anything (Score:2)
Almost all items can cause injuries if a kid swallows them regularly.
Video Example (Score:2)
I was abused by catholic magnets as a child (Score:2)
Notice- children swallowing chainsaws bad (Score:2)
It's science, people!
Degaussing Rare Earth Magnets in MRI (Score:2)
I'm not an EE but could you degauss a Rare Earth Magnet in an MRI or other magnetic coil if it was injested?
Bad for kids, good for teenagers (Score:2)
Don't forget the good side of every story.
The sideeffects will weed out wimpy teenagers that cannot take pain
and orders fake neodynium "piercing" kits.
This is a story from 2006 (Score:3)
This story comes from the Magnetix recall of 2006: [wikipedia.org] "CPSC and Mega Brands are aware of one death, one aspiration and 27 intestinal injuries. Emergency surgical intervention was needed in all but one case." The toy was a construction set of plastic parts with small embedded magnets, usable by small children. The small magnets weren't embedded very well, apparently just pressed into recesses in the plastic, and came out easily. Mega Brands paid a $1.1 million fine for this.
So what? (Score:3)
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that parents should not pay attention to this issue, but 30 kids a year is NOTHING. Far far more die of bathtub accidents, but you don't see people making a big deal out of bathtubs.
It is 1,000 or more times more likely that the kid will get struck by lightning. Should you, therefore, force kids to carry around a lightning rod everywhere they go?
This is one of those "mis-perception of risk" things that you read about. There are much more important things in this world that need your attention.
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This is well-known. Why is is news?
Bingo, I was going to say this too. Only thing I can think of in its defence is that as rare earth magnets (which pose the greatest risk purely due to their strength) have become more common as novelties recently- e.g. through stores such as ThinkGeek- this might be more of an issue than it was previously.
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I think that as toys makers get more and more safety conscious toys become less collectible because they dull the designs and take out features
Take for example G1 Transformers - metal, mij, chrome, full length smokestacks. The same toy could never be sold today to kids even if they somehow could bring the price down.
I feel sorry for my kids kids toys. It will be a glob of synthetic material which safety breaks down if ingested. It won't last more than 2 years though without decomposing itself.
Re:News for nerds? (Score:5, Funny)
Not sure this news item posted on the right web site. Don't you think this is mission creep, timothy?
While I understand the incredulity of a nerd/geek having kids, there is yet a one-word simple answer... MAGNETS!
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The Insane Clown Posse is still trying to figure out how magnets work.
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this is really just an ad for bucky balls at thinkgeek
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Re:In toys? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a certain assumption that when you give a child an age appropriate *toy* you can let the child play with the toy without direct supervision. If a parent's job is to literally watch every single thing their child does from playing with their toys to watching their Dora the Explorer videos, when precisely can said parent be expect to cook, eat, poop, or drive? I'm all for parental responsibility, and yes there are many times when a parent should be supervising a child; but really there have to be some activities that at least require a more passive form of supervision or nothing will ever get done. Surely playing with the child's own toys should be one of those times?
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I'm all for parental responsibility, and yes there are many times when a parent should be supervising a child; but really there have to be some activities that at least require a more passive form of supervision or nothing will ever get done. Surely playing with the child's own toys should be one of those times?
From the summary, "Braden Eberle, 4, swallowed two tiny magnets from his older brother's construction kit on two successive days last spring and his mother's first reaction was that the magnet would pass through her son's system without a problem. "
I certainly agree with you that passive supervision should be all that is required when a child is playing with their own age appropriate toys, in a "baby-proofed area". But if you plan on only passive supervision then you also have the responsibility to make
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Re:In toys? (Score:5, Informative)
The "effective dose" of chilli is quite low compared to the toxic/harmful dose, so it's quite safe for such things. The kid might cry a lot, but after that they'll be more likely to believe dad or mom when they say "No!".
Re:In toys? (Score:5, Funny)
I believe chilli or chilli oil when used judiciously can teach children not to put just anything into their mouths, and to obey their parents when told to not put stuff in their mouths.
Does that work for Thai children too, or does it have the opposite effect?
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Neither are children born liking temperature-hot food and drinks - if something feels hot to your fingers it's too hot for children's mouths and it's actually not tha
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but they certainly do instinctively understand
Not always. Some of them may even try to retaliate in other ways.
They're the assholes with the kids at restaurants screaming their heads off or running around stores like decapitated chickens and throwing seizure-like tantrums on the cereal aisle.
I'm sure they would do that if you hit them, too (perhaps not all of them). Because I've seen it happen. They just screamed even more. But that's just a generalization, anyway.
In any case, hitting someone isn't my preferred method of getting someone to listen to me. I wouldn't hit someone who disagreed with me, and I wouldn't hit a kid whose situation was effectively the same (the difference being that they supposedly can't understand).
Re:In toys? (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how good of a teacher you are, your two-year old will still stick toys in his mouth.
It doesn't matter how observant a parent you are, there will still be moments where you look away.
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There's actually quite a difference between kids in this respect. My oldest rarely put things in his mouth and had stopped doing that when he was about 1yo. The youngest always put everything in his mouth and is just starting to slow down a bit at two.
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37
Re:In toys? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or how about teaching your kids that you have to be careful with some things, or actually supervising them?
One of these tends to preclude the other. Kids need a certain amount of unsupervised, unstructured play. They need to break things they care about. They need to hurt themselves. They need to be nipped by a dog, burn their fingers, bang their head, and fall over... a lot. A small percentage of them will be seriously hurt, even killed, because of that. But if you reduce the percentage of serious harm too low, you also reduce the development of the child, causing a different kind of harm.
(There's apparently a saying in Norway, "a childhood without a broken arm is a wasted childhood.")
The answer to "Kid got hurt" isn't "Hey Parents, stop being so lazy and watch your fucking kids", the answer is, 'Yeah, that happens."
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Because the process of learning to be careful with some things takes time... Eventually your kids learn not to eat stuff like magnets, but it doesn't happen right away.While I'm all for kids learning through cuts, and bruises, and burns, I'd rather not have to take a kid to the hospital for something that they really can't be expected to understand.
Also, there's supervising a kid, and then there's locking a kid up in a padded room. Even if you keep an eye on a kid, you can't always protect them from every k
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In toys? They are the toy.
Magnet set [thinkgeek.com]
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From the link: "For adults only. - These are so super strong, they should be kept away from children."
Re:Why are you surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is not toy rare earth magnets, but rare earth magnets used in toys.
A magnet used as a locking device for the clasp of a book, magnets used in a toy train to hold them together, etc.
Just like lead paint, the substitution is not obvious.
Re:Why are you surprised? (Score:5, Funny)
No, the problem is that magnets are delicious.
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No they don't. At least, not in the entire EU and certainly not for all toys. I just read an article about how the Dutch Food and Wares Safety Inspection holds a lot of inspections, specifically aimed at protecting children from bad toys. Most of the well known manufacturers are very afraid of having bad toys on sale, but a lot of smaller ones aren't equipped or motivated to check out all the stuff they buy externally themselves. So the Inspection does it for them. One of the things they look for is how eas
Re:Why are you surprised? (Score:5, Funny)
Note that is of course also an issue for pets.
Absolutely. Have people learned nothing from the tale of the old woman who swallowed a fly? Ponies should come with warning labels.
Re:Why are you surprised? (Score:5, Informative)
Did you take the plastic bags away at the same time?
All of my "rare-earth" magnets came with giant warnings that not only say "KEEP AWAY FROM ALL CHILDREN" but also "Keep away from nose and mouth. Do not swallow. If swallowed, seek emergency medical attention as magnets may stick together in the intestine, causing severe injury or death".
How could that be more clear?
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A warning label which is not present on toy packaging. Children's toys which contain rare-earth magnets.
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In other News (Score:5, Insightful)
Nearly 300 children drowned in their bath tub.
Nearly 60 drown in a 5 gallon buckets
Over 50 in a hot tub and 16 in toilets.
But of course we need new regulations for magnets.
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Oh, you just wait. It's coming.
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It's just a consumer protection group issuing a warning to make people aware.
I think people who don't read the warnings that come in every product sold on the market will never take notice of a warning issued by a protection group. Let Darwin take care of those things.
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Did you take the plastic bags away at the same time?
I am fairly sure that it is standard practice to take plastic bags away from small children if they start playing with them, yes.
Re:You think it's just a problem with kids? (Score:4)
Did you try it with your intestines?
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I've stripped those magnets out of hard drives many times and found no injury
YMMV. I've seen hard drive magnets that are quite safe, but I once opened a drive that had magnets so strong they were literally blown to pieces when they came near each other. I couldn't pry them apart with my fingers, when I used a screwdriver the steel plate that they were glued on came loose. I ended with a mess of magnet dust clung together in a lump.
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Re:And Air is bad if you breath it too much (Score:5, Funny)
Do you have children? If so have you managed to watch them every second of their lives.
We don't let them out of their locked cages that often.
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ah Saturday Morning comments ... posting nonsensical things on Slashdot.
Actually, that happens on all days and at all times in my experience. :)
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It's for bloody kid's toys. For most things a velcro dot would be good enough for a toy.
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The chinese have embargoed Japan over a border dispute. They hare restricted export of raw rare earths because they want to retain manufacturing in China. They have not restricted export of toys, etc that contain rare earth magnets.
The reason to use rare earth magnets is that they are very strong compared to normal ferrous magnets. In construction sets such as this [ebay.com] contain rare earth magnets. At each end of the bars is a rare earth magnet. They hold the steel spheres very strongly. A regular ferrous magnet