>The harmful products identified by the researchers included interactive baby dolls being sold on eBay that contained a restricted chemical, and a remote control helicopter on Amazon that broke easily, exposing button cell batteries that are extremely dangerous when swallowed.
Oh the horror... Cheap helicopters and batteries. Of course this danger is no doubt reflected in several fold increase in child mortality [0], won't somone think of the children!
>Its campaign is being fronted by Sam McCarthy, the mother of three-year-old Rebecca, who almost died after swallowing brightly coloured magnets bought from a third-party seller on eBay that she mistook for sweets.
Who gave young Rebecca an eBay account? Completely irresponsible, she couldn't know what she was bidding on! Thank God this responsible mother here is around to warn us of the dangers.
322 cases in about 50 years. 69 fatal. That's in the US, but compare to UK birthrates which has seen over 25'000'000 births in that time. These deaths aren't prevented by regulation, they're prevented by parenting
People always disagree. Do you know many people there are? I don't think there's anything people agree on. On your second point, are you interested in my safety or your comfort? Because I feel pretty safe right now.
> During the 18.25-year study period, 8648 battery ingestion cases were reported to the NBIH, including 8161 button batteries and 487 cylindrical cell ingestions (eg, AA, AAA). Cases were reported from the United States (97.1%) and 47 other countries.
> Who gave young Rebecca an eBay account? Completely irresponsible, she couldn't know what she was bidding on! Thank God this responsible mother here is around to warn us of the dangers.
So her kid accidentally eats some magnets and dies and this makes her a valid source of mockery?
I guess I am seeing the side of HN that people complain about
This is honestly just normal HN whenever people talk about doing literally anything to push people to get the covid vaccine or trying to stop people from falling down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Apparently people dying is totally fine as long as there is there's some contrived narrative that it's their own fault.
HN, and more broadly the liberal-tarian crowd, is really really individualist which comes through in issues like these.
"We can't make a rule that toys meant for and sold to children should have to meet basic safety standards, it should be the individual parent's responsibility... rabble rabble something education"
Her kid was given magnets and almost died, that makes it a valid source of mockery, if the kid actually died the mother would instead be a valid target of manslaughter charges
> "I said do whatever you need to do, just save my baby, save her. All I did was buy a toy, that is all I did, I didn't feed my baby magnets, I didn't leave her unattended with them." ...
> The magnets Sam bought online for her son last Christmas.
Mockery is needlessly cruel, but there's a valid underlying point: the ball magnets are an item intended for adults and teenagers, not young children. When I searched on Ebay for "colored ball magnets", I found what looks to be the same item, and it says "adult" in the title twice.
One could argue that hazardous items should be forbidden from having an appearance attractive to young children, but that's hard to implement in practice. I'm inclined to think a warning on the package that they're not for kids and swallowing can be deadly is an appropriate solution for a product like that. DigitDots brand magnetic balls do have such a warning, but I'm not sure if that's true for the white label version I found on Ebay.
I don't get it. It mostly seems to be about swallowing danger, which is generally considered an issue for children under 3. Tiny magnets and remote control helicopters are not appropriate toys for children under 3, and I assume this would be obvious to most parents. In the U.S. such toys would have to be labeled for older children. Is this just a labeling problem?
These things are indeed not appropriate for kids under three but when things break and spill components all over the place it becomes a more general issue.
I think the parent comment is saying the people who wrote the study criticizing online toys sales would benefit from damaging the reputation of online toys sales. This makes it more likely the study doesn't really make sense, and just exists to further an agenda.
I think people should read the actual report (easily available from the https://www.btha.co.uk/ website). After numerous pages of discussion, the report includes an appendix which gives a table of all the toys that were investigated.
One commonly recurring thread seems to be that toys are marketed at babies, using images of children that are far younger than 3. But the organization's independent lab determined that these toys were safe only for older children, like 3+ or older. Another theme is missing labeling related to safety or age.
Regarding the helicopter mentioned in the article and commented on by grandparent, in the table it is revealed that the toy was in fact labeled as for ages 3+. Something that breaks easily, releasing button cell batteries, should not be labeled 3+.
The anecdote about the three-year-old girl who almost died due to swallowing the magnets actually revolved around a ten-year-old who the magnets were for. Those should have been accompanied by warning. Unfortunately, that anecdote is just that; it is not linked to anything in the data. The data does list neodymium magnetic balls (item #58 in the AliExpress table) which were accompanied by no safety labels at all (ouch! in spite of magnets being one of the top swallowing dangers: I heard this face to face from an ER doctor). The anecdote about does not specifically identify that product, though, or mention what the issue was (e.g. did the parents not know about the dangers of magnets, and received no warning from the packaging, which could have caused them to act differently, such as closely monitoring the ten-year-old's play with the items and subsequent tidying?)
It might be a different magnet story, but the one I remember was from a knockoff toy where the magnets broke loose due to a defective design. The original toy did not have this same problem as precautions had been taken to make sure the magnets did not come loose.
40 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 103 ms ] threadOh the horror... Cheap helicopters and batteries. Of course this danger is no doubt reflected in several fold increase in child mortality [0], won't somone think of the children!
>Its campaign is being fronted by Sam McCarthy, the mother of three-year-old Rebecca, who almost died after swallowing brightly coloured magnets bought from a third-party seller on eBay that she mistook for sweets.
Who gave young Rebecca an eBay account? Completely irresponsible, she couldn't know what she was bidding on! Thank God this responsible mother here is around to warn us of the dangers.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041714/united-kingdom-a...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://www.poison.org/articles/button-batteries
How about you go fucking live in the middle of nowhere without Internet, you'll be safe there.
assisted by sensible legislation and product design.
So her kid accidentally eats some magnets and dies and this makes her a valid source of mockery?
I guess I am seeing the side of HN that people complain about
HN, and more broadly the liberal-tarian crowd, is really really individualist which comes through in issues like these.
"We can't make a rule that toys meant for and sold to children should have to meet basic safety standards, it should be the individual parent's responsibility... rabble rabble something education"
>> So her kid accidentally eats some magnets and dies and this makes her a valid source of mockery?
> Her kid was given magnets and almost died, that makes it a valid source of mockery
No, but thinking that reveals certain repulsive personality traits.
It also sounds like Rebecca's mom didn't "give" her magnets:
https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2021-10-06/mum-calls-for-new...
> "I said do whatever you need to do, just save my baby, save her. All I did was buy a toy, that is all I did, I didn't feed my baby magnets, I didn't leave her unattended with them." ...
> The magnets Sam bought online for her son last Christmas.
One could argue that hazardous items should be forbidden from having an appearance attractive to young children, but that's hard to implement in practice. I'm inclined to think a warning on the package that they're not for kids and swallowing can be deadly is an appropriate solution for a product like that. DigitDots brand magnetic balls do have such a warning, but I'm not sure if that's true for the white label version I found on Ebay.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02697...
https://www.btha.co.uk/about-us/
The British Toy & Hobby Association represents specialty retailers, local manufacturers, and a few (large) international toy brands.
All of these groups lose out when a British parent buys cheap Chinese generic toys for their kid on eBay.
One commonly recurring thread seems to be that toys are marketed at babies, using images of children that are far younger than 3. But the organization's independent lab determined that these toys were safe only for older children, like 3+ or older. Another theme is missing labeling related to safety or age.
Regarding the helicopter mentioned in the article and commented on by grandparent, in the table it is revealed that the toy was in fact labeled as for ages 3+. Something that breaks easily, releasing button cell batteries, should not be labeled 3+.
The anecdote about the three-year-old girl who almost died due to swallowing the magnets actually revolved around a ten-year-old who the magnets were for. Those should have been accompanied by warning. Unfortunately, that anecdote is just that; it is not linked to anything in the data. The data does list neodymium magnetic balls (item #58 in the AliExpress table) which were accompanied by no safety labels at all (ouch! in spite of magnets being one of the top swallowing dangers: I heard this face to face from an ER doctor). The anecdote about does not specifically identify that product, though, or mention what the issue was (e.g. did the parents not know about the dangers of magnets, and received no warning from the packaging, which could have caused them to act differently, such as closely monitoring the ten-year-old's play with the items and subsequent tidying?)
At least we have an expectation that products aren't outright toxic.
These ultra low cost goods are also showing up more and more on Amazon these days as well.
Probably a lot, since lead has even shown up in recent(ish) toys from US companies (Mattel) that should know better:
https://tamararubin.com/2020/12/how-old-are-your-childs-toys...
Edit: Sry toddler ...
A lot of toys in there.