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Comment by NeutronBoy | Hacker News Reader

> No power tools, firearms, knives, lighters, or small pieces of matter

These things are not marketed as toys to small children.

The main difference is more that small children often put small objects in their mouths, toy or not. Most tools, knives, etc. are stowed away from the reach of children, these small magnets can be used on refrigerators or desks, etc, things these children readily have access to and frequent and consequently could wrongly ingest them.

As the ALJ found, the problem isn't that the magnets may pose a hazard when ingested, the problem is the possible lack of sufficient labelling, instruction, and up-front warning about the hazards of such magnets.

Why do people make tools, knives, or corrosive chemicals inaccessible to those who don't have enough sense to take care when handling such objects? Because they are forewarned about the dangers of said objects.

Moreover, the ALJ failed to find any significant evidence that the adults who are purchasing these magnets are being any more reckless with them than they are any other hazardous object they might have in their house. From the article:

> “The Agency was unable to sufficiently and credibly correlate any SREM injuries directly to Zen Magnets or Neoballs. The lack of credible evidence here is telling.” And regarding the CPSC’s (Epidemiology) Elephant in the Room, that easily disproven (yet commonly repeated by media) CPSC injury estimate of 2,900 “magnet set” ingestions from 2009 to 2013: “These numbers are insignificant to show any specific, identifiable population, particularly given the mass amount of magnets purchased and already on the market.”

neither are Zen magnets

Neither are the magnets. Where did you get that idea?

From the fact that they had to change their packaging, several times, to make it clear that these are not toys and are not to be used by young children?

EDIT: Packaging did not include "keep away from all children" and had "age: 13+" and "toy" on the packaging, and were sometimes sold in stores that exclusively sold toys for children.

After regulation the manufacturers changed the packaging several times, changing word "toy" to "desktoy", stopped them being sold in children's toy shops and told retailers to keep them away from children's toys, removed the "13+" age limit, included "keep away from all children", and included stronger warnings.

I read that more as attempting to appease the CPSC and avoid an import ban and mandatory recall. It's abundantly clear that the CPSC has chosen to take actions that are substantially out of line with the actual level of hazard posed by such products.

Anyway, do you have access to complete photos of all of the various revs of the packaging? I'm interested in seeing if there was ever a point at which a reasonable person would look at the packaging and accompanying instructional material and get the impression that either

* These would be okay things to give to children who would be unable to understand that swallowing them might be hazardous.

* There isn't any significant hazard posed by swallowing the magnets.

> I read that more as attempting to appease the CPSC and avoid an import ban and mandatory recall.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. They were careless with the packaging and didn't make clear the risks, until they were regulated, and they resisted the regulation until they were faced with a ban.

> It's abundantly clear that the CPSC has chosen to take actions that are substantially out of line with the actual level of hazard posed by such products.

I'm not sure it is abundantly clear.

Toys have very strict standards requirements. These items are sold as toys, alongside other toys, albeit (more recently) sold to adults not children.

But even though they're not sold to adults there were many children being injured by these magnets - more serious injuries than other toys. You can't (and shouldn't) eliminate all risk, but you should take some effort to reduce risk of death or surgery.

> I'm not sure what you're saying here. They were careless with the packaging...

I expect that some manufacturers were. Until we see the packaging we can't determine if Zen Magnets was being careless.

The responsible distributors that I've seen all have the same story: "No amount of packaging changes have satisfied the CPSC. They won't be satisfied until noone is permitted to manufacture within or import SREM magnet sets into the US.".

I've looked at the rejected packaging from responsible distributors. The packaging makes it abundantly clear that those are not children's toys. I've read the documentation shipped inside Buckyballs magnet sets. It makes the dangers of ingestion of the magnets in the sets very clear.

Because what I can see with my eyes differs so wildly from what the CPSC is asserting about manufacturer's packaging, and because (as the ALJ found) what the CPSC is asserting about injury rates and the like isn't actually credible, I take what the CPSC has to say about the topic with a very large grain of salt.

It's one thing to prohibit the sale of inadequately or improperly marked SREM magnet sets. It's another thing entirely to ban the production and/or importation of all SREM magnet sets, regardless of how well marked they are.

You dig?

I agree that their early packaging was inadequate. I had an early set, and I don't recall it conveying how dangerous swallowing two or more magnets can be. (Swallowing one is fine unless you need an MRI.) They were required to update their warning labels, and I'm fine with that.

My problem is that they'd updated the warnings as required and then were hit with a blanket ban that applies regardless of how and where they are labeled and sold. It's not even about punishing a particular company that was misbehaving; it applies to all potential sellers.

That's stupid. There's no good reason why an informed adult should be forbidden to buy little magnets.

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