In September , while the Zen Magnets recall case was still pending, the CPSC enacted an all ages nationwide ban on sales, manufacturing, and importation on all sets of high powered magnet spheres in the US. We won. And in fact were the first to overturn a CPSC rule in 32 years. However, genuine Buckyballs are technically not allowed for sale as part of their recall settlement agreement.
Recalled products are illegal to sell, manufacture, and distribute. Whether or not the counterfeit "Buckyballs," which are the only ones available now, are banned in any manner is a matter of legal uncertainty.
What is certain, is that the CPSC has done nothing to stop equally dangerous knockoffs of the recalled Buckyballs. What Happened to Neoballs?
Free Magnets ZenMagnets. Newsletter Signup. In Zucker's case, it's the federal government. As Zucker sees it, the government destroyed his business--and now, by suing him personally for the cost of recalling every Buckyball he ever sold, it's hellbent on destroying him, too.
Losing this battle will ruin him financially. Winning, which could be years and millions of dollars away, might well ruin him, too. About miles south of Zucker's office--across the street from a high school, upstairs from a day care center--is the headquarters of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, in Bethesda, Maryland. Inside, Scott Wolfson, head of communications, sits with a framed photo of his son and a 1 Dad ribbon on his desk. But behind him are pictures of other children.
There's month-old Danny Keysar, who died after a crib collapsed on his neck. There's month-old Kenny Sweet Jr. And next to them is the most recent addition to the collage: Braylon Jordan, just 23 months old in the photo. He must eat through a tube for the rest of his life because he swallowed eight little magnetic balls that tore holes through his intestines like gunshots.
Those magnets weren't Buckyballs; they were a competitor's brand. To Wolfson, they may as well have been Zucker's. It also shows how this small, long underfunded agency has become more aggressive than ever--taking hard-line stances with businesses and using heavy-handed tactics to rid America of the products it deems dangerous.
Gidding, a product-safety lawyer based in Bethesda. The agency's lawsuit has riveted small-business advocates, and they aren't the only ones watching. Consumer-interest groups and product-safety lawyers are glued to it, too. The outcome could have implications for anyone who sells stuff in America. Zucker smiles when he tells the beginning of the story. He was in his 20s and had just failed launching a product called Tap'd NY--filtered New York City tap water that he bottled and sold back to New Yorkers as "local.
Looking around for his next thing, he had come across a YouTube video marketing tiny balls of neodymium that snapped together to make cool shapes. He thought he could sell them better. They made the brand all about fun. At early trade shows, the founders concocted origins for Bucky on the spot. Sales took off right away. At each new trade show, the founders signed up dozens, sometimes hundreds, of new retail accounts. But in January , at a gift show in Atlanta, Zucker received an ominous call from a sales rep.
The 2-year-old son of a retail client had swallowed two magnets. The boy was fine--the balls passed through his system without harm--but the store didn't want to carry Buckyballs anymore. Unsure what to do, he went back to his booth and wrote more orders.
Oddly enough, the CPSC's inquiry wasn't related to the incident with the 2-year-old. It had to do with the warning labels on the Buckyball packages. Zucker didn't realize it at the time, but magnets were a sore spot for the agency. When Congress established the CPSC, in , it gave the agency sweeping authority to set safety standards, ban products, order recalls, and levy fines in more than 10, product categories.
But in , the Reagan administration slashed its budget and added onerous rules that cowed it to industry. For instance, the CPSC had to get companies' permission to disclose their brand names during most recalls.
So it cut a lot of deals. If a company agreed to recall a product quickly, the agency allowed it to deny its product posed a hazard--vital armor against the nation's hordes of personal-injury lawyers.
But in , crisis struck. An investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune published a series of scathing product-safety articles. The first began with a preschool teacher pleading with a rep on the CPSC's hotline: Magnets from a building toy called Magnetix had come loose, a 5-year-old boy had swallowed them, and he'd almost died.
The agency took the report but did nothing. Six months later, little Kenny Sweet Jr. The story, which later won a Pulitzer Prize, showed a pattern of ignored warnings, ineffectual recalls, and avoidable deaths--much of it because, the series alleged, the CPSC was "a captive of industry.
Later in , millions of toys were recalled for illegal levels of lead--news that dominated the headlines, given that it raised concerns that America had ceded quality control to China.
In , Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation to overhaul the agency. A separate rule banned children's toys with neodymium magnets small enough to swallow.
A printout is tacked on Wolfson's wall next to the children. The headline: Not Until a Boy Died. Zucker wasn't up on this history, but he hired a lawyer who was. Alan H. Schoem was a product-safety lawyer and a year veteran of the CPSC. Together he, Zucker, and Bronstein untangled the warning-label issue. To be extra safe, they changed the warnings to Keep away from all children! Just 50 sets were returned. Zucker felt he was securely on the right side of the law. It turns out that they're a big hazard to small children, who would often eat them.
The balls would attract each other inside the digestive tract, causing massive damage and requiring surgery to remove. But just last week, a federal judge overturned the CPSC decision, meaning that the tiny magnetic balls are legal again. At least one company is wasting no time after this ruling. Source: Popular Science. Type keyword s to search.
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