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Comment by flashman | Hacker News Reader

People love to say that they shouldn't be prevented from owning these toys just because some other person's child might get injured, and I sympathise with that point of view. But at their peak, three thousand children a year were visiting emergency departments for suspected magnet ingestion (a number which declined after the CPSC ban).[1]

Lawn darts were banned on a mere 750 ED visits annually.[2] The fact is, we live in a society and (as with fireworks and other dangerous toys that could be labelled 'adults only') the cost of being able to have these magnets on your desk is probably dozens or hundreds of kids getting very sick.

[1]https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/29135818 [2]http://mentalfloss.com/article/31176/how-one-dad-got-lawn-da...

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>But at their peak, three thousand children a year were visiting emergency departments for suspected magnet ingestion (a number which declined after the CPSC ban).[1]

Several points:

1. Suspected magnet ingestion =/= magnet ingestion. I believe we should stop here, however:

2. Of course a total ban on sales (which was in effect for some time) would decrease this number, but

3. So would improved packaging and public education campaigns on the potential dangers of the product, which were happening at the same time, and

4. If you actually read the paper, they observe that the reduction in the suspected ingestion cases was not that large: from 8,326 to 6,260. Perhaps you should include that in your cost function.

5. Also from the paper: 86% of the kids were "treated and released from the ED or examined and released without treatment"

To put the nail in the suspected coffin, one should go and read the article you referenced: [SciHub link][1]:

>Subjects from 0-17 years old were included using a primary search term for diagnosis of “ingested object” from the time period of 2002-2015. Cases of ingested objects were classified as “suspected magnet ingestion” (SMI) if the term “magnet” appeared anywhere in the narrative section of the database.

Meanwhile, a million kids ended up in emergency rooms from trampoline-related injuries over a decade[2], and no one bats an eye.

[1]http://sci-hub.nu/10.1097/MPG.0000000000001830

[2]https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-terrifying-statistics-tramp...

> the cost of being able to have these magnets on your desk is probably dozens or hundreds of kids getting very sick

No, that's the cost of everyone being able to have these magnets on their desk. The pro rata cost of me being able to have them is quite small.

I'm all for the magnets, and Zen's solution of education (vs the CSPC's banhammer solution).

However, this argument is exactly wrong -- it would create another commons problem, where your individual interest is against the interest of the group, and so everyone acting in their individual interest creates a big problem.

(fortunately, with education and careful use, we can avoid the common problem)

That is the marginal cost, which generally tends to zero. It's not a very effective argument in this case.

marginal != pro rata

"3. So would improved packaging and public education campaigns on the potential dangers of the product, which were happening at the same time, and"

So would limiting sale to industrial supply houses like McMaster-Carr rather than "Happy Fun Magnet Toy Yum Yum Company"

Proper warnings or even age restrictions on sales are the correct solution, not a total ban. The knee-jerk reaction of "children can hurt themselves with it, let's ban it" is completely wrong. There are countless items in any household that could potentially be lethal to a child.

The problem is that almost no one reads those warnings. Most packages for kids toys will have a warning somewhere on them about how they are a swallow or suffocation hazard. People get desensitized to that constant bombardment of warnings. Unless you spend some time really thinking about it, it might not be clear why swallowing a magnet like this might be so much more dangerous than swallowing a something of this size made of different material.

That also factors into your point about other household items. Most of the household items that are dangerous to children are very clearly dangerous. It is much easier for a parent to overlook the danger of these magnets compared with stuff like potentially poisonous household cleaners.

You say "almost no one" heeds the warnings, but it's certainly not true that almost everyone gives tiny magnets to toddlers.

I am confused, I didn't say anything close to "almost everyone gives tiny magnets to toddlers" and that wouldn't even be a relevant factor in this discussion. My point was that most people don't understand how dangerous tiny magnets might be for toddlers.

The inverse of "almost no one" is "almost everyone". When you say that "almost no one" reads warnings, you imply the set "almost everyone" is going to encounter problems.

> " My point was that most people don't understand how dangerous tiny magnets might be for toddlers."

And yet, far from "most people" giving magnets to toddlers, very few people seem to.

You missed the point.

Almost everyone lets toddlers play with toys that say "Choking hazard: Ages 3+", because that warning comes on basically all toys, including stuff like Jenga blocks, sidewalk chalk, ....

Any parent who disallows their child from playing with any “age 3+” labeled toys/objects before age 3 is going to be significantly delaying their child’s development of basic fine motor skills.

Some parents might become desensitized to the labels since the warning is used over-broadly, and might not realize that tiny magnets are something you have to be extra careful about, because the effects of swallowing magnets are generally worse than the effects of swallowing some little piece of plastic.

No, you've completely missed the point. Whether or not "almost nobody heeds the warnings" is true or not is irrelevant because regardless of whether or not they're reading the labels their observed behavior is that most of them do not give toys like this to young kids.

You don't need to read a warning label, or even know of the special medical threat of swallowed magnets to think this 'toy' was a bad idea for a small child. Would you give a toddler a box of completely inert culinary grade stainless steel BBs to play with? Of course you wouldn't. Your kid could eat them and shit them out to his hearts content, but he still might chip a tooth trying to bite them and even if he were toothless why would you give a kid even harmless metal balls? They're just going to wind up stuck in his nose or something. Nobody gives inert glass marbles this small to young kids. It's a bad idea all around even discounting the unique threat magnets pose. Which is probably why there are very few confirmed cases of kids actually eating these magnets.

> box of completely inert culinary grade stainless steel BBs to play with?

If you did, it wouldn’t really be a big deal. Toddlers daily encounter playgrounds full of tiny rocks, wood chips, etc. which are more dangerous than the BBs. Swallowing BBs is comparable to swallowing cherry pits. It’s very unlikely to be life threatening. Typically there is no noticeable effect, or there might be some minor discomfort as it works through the digestive system.

I would be entirely comfortable letting my under 2 year old play with BB-sized steel or glass balls, under loose adult supervision, from a safety perspective (from a that’s-going-to-be-a-mess perspective I can well imagine avoiding giving kids BBs). More realistically, I can imagine letting an older child play with a box of BBs without worrying that a toddler would eat a few and die. Larger marbles are more of a choking hazard, and require closer adult supervision.

But swallowing magnets is much more dangerous.

> I would be entirely comfortable letting my under 2 year old play with BB-sized steel or glass balls, under loose adult supervision, from a safety perspective

You'll be spending time in ED having them removed from the nose or ear.

Fair enough. Thankfully we haven’t yet had any pebbles shoved in nose or ear, and we play with those on a regular basis. I feel like little objects making it into the mouth is significantly more common.

It’s very easy to overlook the risk of these magnets pinching the intestines.

Similarly children often swallow batteries and no one thinks it that’s a good thing but many people do not realize that the child can die from it and it should be treated as an emergency.

Did you miss the part where basically nobody would give their child a box full of non-magnetic BBs anyway? Even if you had no clue magnets were dangerous, if you thought they were the safety equivalent of stainless steel BBs, you wouldn't give a toddler a box of them.

>The inverse of "almost no one" is "almost everyone". When you say that "almost no one" reads warnings, you imply the set "almost everyone" is going to encounter problems.

That does not follow logically at all. Just because someone doesn't heed the warning doesn't mean they will fall victim to what they are being warned about. Think of it like jaywalking. "Almost no one" heeds the warnings about the dangers of jaywalking. That does not mean that "almost everyone" would be hit by a car. Someone being mindless of the dangers of an activity does not mean they will automatically succumb to those dangers, but that also doesn't mean that the dangers were not real, serious, and worth protecting against.

> "That does not follow logically at all."

I never said it follows in a strict mathematical sense, I said it was implied, and implied that it was implied in an informal sense. And I stand by that. By saying that most people don't read warning labels you absolutely meant to suggest that that a very large portion of the population would have trouble with products which require warning labels.

You can say I phrased something poorly which implied something I didn't intend. However, you lose all credibility when you get to the point of saying I "absolutely meant to suggest" something. It is frankly insulting that you are pretending to know my intentions better than I do.

Toddlers were not the only children being harmed. For example, teens were using the magnets as fake mouth piercings and swallowing them.

To be fair, then the problem here are parents not the adult toys. And if you start banning things for the general population, with which negligent parents could kill their kids, there is an extremely long list to go.

My magnets wont get eaten by anyone and suprise neither will my cleaning supplies. There is also no one touching my knifes and no one is putting flatware in my toaster or wall socket. There is also no one drowning in my make belief pool.

If you really belief, that protecting children from their parents miss judgment, than banning people with children in their household from buying and owning every last of those items. Which obviously would be extremely discriminating towards adult humans with offsprings.

'Subjects from 0-17 years old were included using a primary search term for diagnosis of “ingested object” from the time period of 2002-2015. Cases of ingested objects were classified as “suspected magnet ingestion” (SMI) if the term “magnet” appeared anywhere in the narrative section of the database. Researchers then identified specific characteristics of ingested magnets for descriptions related to rare-earth metals or small size. Specific inclusionary terms for small, round size/shape included: small, tiny, ≤1cm, battery-like, marble, bead, BB, ball, sphere, round, and circular. Inclusion terms for multiple were: multiple, > 1, or the plural “magnets.” '

This has got to have an obscenely high false positive rate.

When the ban was being proposed the CPSC's claim was "at least a dozen" from 2009-2012.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/07/feds-sue-to-take-zen-ma...

~100,000 narratives to classify and they couldn't even be bothered to have a couple interns spend a few weeks reviewing suspected narratives? All it would take is to present the suspected narrative to a human with the instances of "magnet" highlighted so the human could quickly determine if the sentence mentioning "magnet" was actually talking about one being eaten. Since when does a dumb database query with next to no diligence even qualify as science? If this is truly a matter of saving the lives of children, then surely the expense could be spared.

This whole thing is insulting.

I suppose the question is what sort of world do you want to live in? I had a great time with fireworks growing up in a less regulated country (Fiji), most of the time we don't even bother with Guy Fawkes here (NZ) now. Having also spent time in a few other more & less nanny state-ish countries growing up I don't think bubble wrapping children does them many favours in the long run.

My parents thought nothing of my using power equipment growing up, string trimmers, lawnmowers, chainsaws. I was told "read the manual" and assumed to be responsible. But not guns or explosives. Is that "bubble wrapping"? Some people draw the line at things that are too prone to instant death or maiming when you screw up.

Ever Google "pierre paul finger"?

Well I have now, and at school in Fiji there were stories of other kids blowing themselves up with homemade kerosene & bamboo fireworks. My personal opinion is that responsibility and risk are related, and if you don't have a gradual increase of both in a relatively safe environment while growing up you are more likely to wrap your sports car around a traffic light (for example) once you finally experience 100% of both at once.

Of course everyone has different opinions of what an acceptable level of risk is.

Did you ever actually "read the manual"?

Yes, it was before the internet was popular; reading books was basically all there was.

My favorite manuals of all time were the original printed Inside Macintosh volumes. They were amazing compared to, say, the documentation for the Amiga OS.

>Lawn darts were banned on a mere 750 ED visits annually

Lawn darts are a toy, a toy for children an adults to play alike.

Ball magnets aren't sold as a toy. We don't restrict the sale of sharp knives because children might injure themselves, no we rely on parents to not let their children play with them.

> Ball magnets aren't sold as a toy.

They were when this controversy began.

But not anymore, and not for a while.

And from CPSC's perspective, it doesn't matter, because they were sticking to the point that no amount of warnings and restrictions can make magnets safe enough to be sold. (Unlike, say, an M-16 rifle).

If they ever need plan B they can start manufacturing guns out of these ball magnets, and then CPSC won't be able to touch them.

What CPSC document are you relying on for that assertion? I just read the 2017 Zen Magnet ALJ decision, and it revolves around the marketed intended use for the products:

The intended use and operation of the Subject Products require the magnets to be separated and reattached to create and reshape the magnets into a variety of figures, sculptures, structures, jewelry, and art. See, e.g., Exs. R-55 (product guide with examples of structures that can be created with the Subject Products); R-139 (“Never Let Go of Childhood Wonder” demonstration video

Two obvious observations:

- "Childlike wonder"? Really?

- If there's any use for these things that is more dangerous than desk toys, it's jewelry.

>We don't restrict the sale of sharp knives because children might injure themselves

Some places do, actually.

https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives

Sorry, I should have been more careful with my choice of wording. We don't outright ban sharp knives.

In Australia most states have laws restricting knife sales to young people, in my state it's 18.

I don't think many people would be against a law preventing sale of these magnets to children,.

One has to wonder why only numbers for suspected, rather than confirmed, magnet ingestion are reported.

The other comment betrays the reason: because the numbers are bogus and are artificially inflated to be high by making a query too broad (it includes marbles, BB balls, batteries, etc).

Just another example of the FUD spread by CPSC which people ended up eating wholesale.

Which query are you referring to? It's important to understand that the first step in a systematic review is to identify all the potentially relevant literature (the "search"), only after which are the studies found screened for inclusion. We're conservative in the direction of over-inclusion during the "search", but in the opposite direction during the "screen".

We - are you one of the authors? Perhaps you can clarify the following paragraph from [1], page 8:

>Inclusion Criteria and Variable Classification:

>Subjects from 0-17 years old were included using a primary search term for diagnosis of “ingested object” from the time period of 2002-2015. Cases of ingested objects were classified as “suspected magnet ingestion” (SMI) if the term “magnet” appeared anywhere in the narrative section of the database.

Where's the screening part you mention? I didn't find anywhere that the inclusion criteria implied that magnets have actually been ingested - or that the results were filtered in any way other than a keyword search.

E.g.: "Child ingested a marble, parent worries that it could have been a magnet" would pass this inclusion criterion.

[1]http://sci-hub.nu/10.1097/MPG.0000000000001830

"Child ingested...We took a magnetic resonance image."

But i should hope that medical specialists use the abbreviated mri.

>MRI

Well that's one way to get the magnet out...

That’s not the reason. That’s your theory about the reason. I have a better theory, posted as an answer to your parent post.

It’s not that hard to figure out the simple, non-tinfoil hat answer: the items are hidden deep inside the recesses and folds of soft tissue organs inside the body. It’s not that easy to find them or even verify 100% that they are magnetic, without very specialized equipment. An x-ray machine only gets you part of the way there. Then you have to go by what you hear from the patient, who might be three years old.

Falling out of bed kills 600 Americans a year.[1] Should we regulate beds so that the distance between the mattress and the floor not exceed a few inches?

[1]http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1562978...

For some years as a fairly young kid, in between a crib and a real bed, I had a mattress on the floor.

When I was in college my freshman year, the dorms had bunk beds, and I worried about falling from the top, but never did.

My parents were not especially concerned about the dangers of beds, bicycles, cars, drugs, alcohol, chainsaws, or lawnmowers when I was growing up. On the other hand they drew the line at motorcycles and guns. The only time I was seriously injured (concussion), it was bicycle related, FWIW.

I don't know how you do a cost-benefit analysis for society when nobody particularly agrees on the benefits of something.

Just because you didn't fall out of bed doesn't mean it doesn't happen https://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-tech-student-suffers-severe...

Well if you want to make these sorts of comparisons why not ban cars (cause lots of death, including children) and firearms (accidental shootings alone probably make magnets look like...well toys).

If you ban stuff at some point someone has to at least implicitly weight utility against risk. That's ultimately going to be fairly subjective. I'd say cars are overall still a good thing, guns I'm not sure about (but in the U.S. the constitution trumps the death statistics), magnets...I have a hard time quantifying the utility but there's probably a decent economic argument for them overall.

It's obviously easy to say "protection of innocent children" but that doesn't mean it's all there is to it.

> the cost of being able to have these magnets on your desk is probably dozens or hundreds of kids getting very sick.

I'd like to live in a society willing to pay that price.

Respectfully: wouldn't really believing that make you kind of an asshole? The number of children I would need to see hospitalized to give up a desk toy is pretty low.

I could be misreading you, but it sounds like you're stipulating that kids are getting hurt, and saying you'd be happier if we could hurt some reasonable amount of kids to get new desk toys. That is a different and more disturbing argument from the one that says that we should be able to have the desk toys and avoid the harm, too.

> "Respectfully: wouldn't really believing that make you kind of an asshole?"

Don't you think asking such a question is not a terribly subtle way of calling somebody an asshole?

The emphasis to my eye was on the word "really". tptacek is suggesting that author of the previous post should consider whether they really mean that or if he they have merely taken a stance without thinking it through clearly.

Very different both in tone and implication from "You're an asshole for saying that".

Saying "If you honestly mean that then you're an asshole" is just a round-about way of calling somebody an asshole while providing them with an out; it's a method of insulting people to get them to change their stance. Where I come from, it's considered rude.

In fact, I wrote it the other way first, and but when I read it on the screen, it looked a lot like I was saying they were an asshole, and so ratcheted it back, since that wasn't what I was trying to say.

You were saying they were an asshole, in both versions. Trying to be coy about it doesn't change it. I'm not sure why you bothered to be coy about it since you regularly get away with incivility on this site.

Same argument should ban coal burning power plants, hot dogs, and automobiles.

All of them kill astronomically more children than any toy, even taking into account their generally more practical uses. There are substitutes.

No, your rebuttal misses that there's a numerator and a denominator in mine: hazard and utility.

I'm taking that into account actually. That's why I said "taking into account their more practical uses".

No, believing that doesn't make a person an asshole. It's entirely fair to debate what number of injuries or deaths is acceptable, but it's not fair to call a person an asshole just because they come up with a different number than you do.

Society makes these decisions every day. We accept a large number of injuries and deaths due to cars because we feel they are still a net benefit (which may be debatable when public transportation might be a better option to reduce the numbers). We make these decisions around gun ownership - and obviously there is a large amount of controversy there - at least in the US.

Most importantly, accepting that some children will be injured or killed by a product doesn't mean that the person doesn't care, and won't take steps to use and store the product responsibly so as to prevent injury or death.

I'm with you. It's difficult for some people to understand, I suppose.

"I'd like to live in a society willing to pay that price."

Well, you're lucky because Trump's making it happen.

I heard the vast majority of those cases were from other products with poorly secured magnets in them.

The article says zen magnets was the first company whose sales were blocked after zero confirmed incidents, so it sounds like all those incidents were from other products.

Yes. ZenMagnets has always put warnings on their products, and there are no confirmed incidents of ingestion involving their magnets. To me, this constitutes empirical evidence that warning labels can work.

ZenMagnets also petitioned the CPSC to establish labeling requirements that all small magnet vendors would have to comply with. Instead of going along with this eminently reasonable suggestion, they continued to try to get the product off the market.

Full disclosure: happy ZenMagnets customer.

> ZenMagnets has always put warnings on their products

I'll have to dig up my old set of magnets but I don't believe their early warnings would clue you in to exactly how dangerous the magnets are when ingested. The newer warnings are considerably more effective, I suspect, if what is on the website ("MAY CAUSE FATAL INTESTINAL PINCHING") is representative of what's on the package.

edit: I hope this stupid warning is not a real thing today: https://images1.westword.com/imager/one-of-the-warning-label...

I feel like these are frivolous toys that are a net negative to society, but the product has legitimate uses (however silly) and does not cause injury when used appropriately. There are many products in our everyday lives with legitimate uses that can and do regularly injure children but are not banned because we have (at least implicitly) decided that the benefits outweigh the costs. Ultimately this kind of ban is based off a value judgment and it doesn't feel like it is something appropriate for an un-elected regulatory body to decide. The ban should come from Congress.

If a product causes injuries when used as intended then CPSC action seems warranted to me. This is not such a case. I also suspect the lawn dart ban might not have held up in court had manufacturers then pressed as hard as Qu has been pressing today, so I don't think that ban does anything to legitimize CPSC action now. Fireworks bans in the United States have (to my knowledge) originated from legislative bodies.

By the way, the way CPSC reached their conclusion that these magnetic balls were a net negative was based off their own calculation that injuries to children cost more to treat than profits made by the magnetic ball companies. This seems like an absurd way to calculate whether or not something is a net negative to society.

> I feel like these are frivolous toys

They are not toys.

As I understand it, the CPSC restriction is on the packaging and marketing of the magnets as toys and entertainment devices. You weren't prohibited from owning small magnets.

Am I misunderstanding? It's been awhile since I read any of the primary source documentation on this stuff.

What are they then? Seriously. What is it, if it is not a toy? Sure it’s has this patina of being for adults, but that doesn’t make it a toy. In fact, aren’t these and other little magnetic sculptures marketed as “desk toys”?

Small magnets that are not toys are bought through industrial supply houses and such, not websites advertising them with bullshit copy like "Zen Magnets are fun to play with, deeply addictive, and go well with deep breaths. "

Hint: advertising magnets that are "fun to play with" is advertising them as toys.

I don't know, I'm pretty sure this leads to putting kids in bubbles - and for full disclosure, I'm a proponent of right to roam laws. How do you balance letting kids learn to manage risk in unstructured environments with banning objects and activities that might be dangerous?

How do you balance letting kids learn to manage risk in unstructured environments with banning objects and activities that might be dangerous?

People have been doing it for generations, so consider it something you'll want to think about for yourself before having children.

I think you misread my intent in asking that question.

I read your intent and I don't agree with a libertarian implication that ignores how things have worked more or less fine, and which is certainly not banning everything.

This is a really different issue from right to roam. Magnet ingestion is something that will happen when curious little hands get hold of these magnets, and is also not something you can obviously know has happened. That's scary given the great potential for severe adverse health consequences.

I don't think it is terribly different. Getting struck by a vehicle is at least as great a danger, if not a much more likely scenario, than ingesting magnets, and is also not immediately apparent for the simple fact that the kids are out of sight. I would put "right to roam" laws as being in opposition to the banning of object like magnets or Kinder Eggs.

That said, I do understand they can cause great harm. But what do we lose when we choose to isolate our kids from reality?

A child being struck by a vehicle is almost always immediately obvious to the driver of that vehicle if nobody else.

That said, I wouldn't ban magnets myself, though I'm against selling then directly to young children.

Children need to be able to hurt themselves. That may bother some people to hear, but I'd suggest googling "congenital analgesia" for them. Children need to not be able to kill themselves via hazards their genetic heritage provides them no way to realize is dangerous. That is, children quickly learn not to fall too far [1], but they've got no inherent defense against eating two magnets slightly spaced apart in time. Or antifreeze. Or electricity. Etc.

There's still a lot of judgement involved, and I'm right there with you on children being overprotected in general. But they need to be kept from the unrecoverable mistakes.

One of the interesting things about child proofing your home, if you are of an introspective mindset, is the cataloging of how much danger you causally live with. Or at least, danger from a certain point of view.

[1]: Not 100% perfectly, of course. But there's a qualitative difference between our natural instinct's ability to deal with fall damage, and eating rare earth magnets.

>But they need to be kept from the unrecoverable mistakes.

Unless those mistakes involve trampolines[1], because wheeee! Those are cool.

What I'm saying is that there are a lot of dangerous things, but we don't necessarily ban all of them.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-terrifying-statistics-tramp...

Well, I wasn't explaining the logic of the law, but the logic I use. I'm consistent; we have rejected requests for a trampoline, and the usage my kids have had has been heavily supervised.

One thing about trampolines is that AIUI, the vast majority of the danger comes from having multiple people on one at a time. Most of the remaining risk is manageable, more in the normal range of risk, especially with supervision. As evidence, I cite that in lawsuit-crazy USA, there are businesses like Sky Zone that provide trampoline play commercially. That kinda bounds the upper level of risk...

I have some additional considerations that require that for other reasons, but I think I'd still feel the same way even without them.

>Well, I wasn't explaining the logic of the law, but the logic I use.

Great! The whole point is that you are capable to do that, and that the total ban is unreasonable. Nobody is arguing that having small magnets around little kids who don't know better is a good idea.

> there are businesses like Sky Zone that provide trampoline play commercially. That kinda bounds the upper level of risk...

In the past few weeks I've seen a couple articles about people breaking their spine doing flips into foam pits. I would avoid that particular activity, at least.

I had a trampoline as a kid. It resulted in a few very painful injuries, but it was a lot of fun. My brother broke his arm rolling off of it (nobody was even jumping). You can't fall off the edge at those businesses because the trampolines are built into raised floor areas. That removes one of the larger dangers from the equation.

> But they need to be kept from the unrecoverable mistakes.

That's a good point. I hope they keep these magnets out of kids' hands. The article ends on a promising note in that regard:

> We remain willing to work with the CPSC to develop the magnet safety standards for which we’ve already petitioned, and which will be more effective and reasonable than the all-ages, nationwide ban we succeeded in vacating in the Tenth Circuit. As we’ve already been doing, Zen Magnets looks forward to providing not just the highest quality magnet spheres on the market, but also the safest in terms of sales methods and warnings. Now that the war on magnets is over, hopefully we can all focus towards the war on magnet misuse.

"Children need to be able to hurt themselves."

I think you're kind of appealing to nature in a fallacious way. Hundreds of years ago, these magnets wouldn't exist. So, yes, there's always ways for bad things to happen, but even if that's "natural" and therefore necessary, that's not a reason to retain a particular hazard that has existed for a short period of time historically.

2,400 children go to the emergency room every year from sticking things in electrical sockets. Nobody cares to stop the sale and installation of standard electrical outlets, though, because that would be an inconvenience to too many people.

Another example is alcohol. Annually it kills 88,000 in the US and 2.4 Million world wide. Yet weed, a drug that kills 0 people, and is an effective tool for managing pain and misc. disorders, has been illegal for a century or more.

The banning of the magnets is a convenience for people who don't want to be required to behave responsibly. If enough people wanted the magnets, they would never have been banned.

By your logic, we should ban vehicle for it cause traffic incidents.

But there are things like dirt bikes and swimming pools which are much more dangerous to kids. So why not start there?

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