Powerful Magnets Cited In Toy Recall

Hazard to Children Well-Documented

While Chinese manufacturers are bearing the heat over recent toy recalls, toy designers are getting the blame for some of Mattel's Tuesday recall.

The flaw in most of the 9 million toys in that recall involved small, powerful magnets that are potentially fatal if ingested. More than 15 million toys, including Mattel Polly Pocket dolls and Mega Brands' popular Magnetix, have been recalled in the United States since 2006 because they contain those magnets. Swallowed magnets have led to the death of at least one child and dozens of serious injuries.

These rare-earth magnets can be 20 times more powerful than the average refrigerator magnet. As they have become cheaper, the magnets have become more popular in toys because they can make Barbie's dog chase after her, for example, or make Polly Pocket's clothes easier to put on and take off.

The magnets may cause little harm and can pass through the digestive system if a child swallows one. But if a child swallows more than one magnet, they can attract one another through intestinal walls, which can cause blockages and rip soft tissue.

Older magnets were bigger and harder to swallow. They also were not powerful enough to cause serious damage.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is pushing the toy industry to adopt more stringent standards with toys that contain the magnets, while Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is calling for rare-earth magnets to be banned in children's toys.

The commission "is greatly concerned about the potential of these toys to hurt children," said safety commission spokesman Scott Wolfson.

"If rare-earth magnets are dangerous, it doesn't matter who is manufacturing them," Madigan said. "They shouldn't be in the hands of children because of the serious injury and the possible death they can cause."

Madigan said that even toys that companies regard as safe can be dangerous.

"The way kids play with things isn't always how the toy companies would like to think kids play with things," she said. "They put it in their mouth, they throw them, they step on them. And in the course of that conduct, the magnets fall out."

Yesterday, Dollar Tree Stores of Chesapeake, Va., told Madigan that it would pull Mag Links and Mini Mag Links magnetic building toys pending further investigation because of safety concerns. It said that toys had been found safe in past tests but that "out of an abundance of caution," it would take them off shelves and test them further.

The toy industry passed a voluntary standard in May that required all toys to have clear warning labels and be tested so magnets do not fall out under normal use.

"This all came about by surprise; no one knew of the potential hazards," said Joan Lawrence, vice president of the Toy Industry Association, a trade group.

Mattel said its Tuesday recall related to magnets applied to toys made from 2002 to January 2007, when it designed a better system for securing the magnets in its toys. Since the Magnetix recall in March 2006, Mega Brands added tougher warning labels to packaging and redesigned the toys so the magnets were embedded more deeply.

The safety commission began receiving reports of injuries associated with swallowed magnets as early as 2000. In the only known fatal case, in 2005, 20-month-old Kenny Sweet of Washington state ingested magnets from a Magnetix set left behind by an older sibling, according to Alan E. Oestreich, a pediatric radiologist from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

"By the time he got to the hospital, the infection from the holes in the bowel was so great that he could not be saved," Oestreich said.

Oestreich says his hospital has seen seven patients who swallowed magnets since 2004. He knows of more than 100 cases worldwide of children who swallowed magnets, most of them from the United States.

In one of the seven cases at the Cincinnati hospital, the magnet passed through the body without causing damage.

In five cases, major abdominal surgery was necessary, Oestreich said. All seven patients have recovered.