New Federal Safety Standard for Magnets to Prevent Deaths and Serious Injuries

9/7/22 CPSC Approves New Federal Safety Standard for Magnets to Prevent Deaths and Serious Injuries from High-Powered Magnet Ingestion

Thanks to Ben Gold for this reference

“In an effort to reduce the risk of children and teens experiencing serious, even life-threatening injuries from swallowing dangerous, small high-powered magnets, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) voted to approve a new federal safety standard for magnets on September 7, 2022.”
“The new mandatory federal standard requires loose or separable magnets in certain magnet products to be either too large to swallow, or weak enough to reduce the risk of internal injuries when swallowed; specifically, if the magnets fit in a small parts cylinder, then they must have a flux index of less than 50 kG2 mm2.”
“CPSC estimates 26,600 magnet ingestions were treated in hospital ERs from 2010 through 2021, and cases have been rising annually since 2018. CPSC is aware of seven deaths involving the ingestion of hazardous magnets (including two outside of the United States), the majority of these incidents likely involved magnet sets.”
“CPSC urges anyone who may own these magnets and magnet sets to discard them to protect children who may come into contact with them and unintentionally ingest them. “

My take: This is a step in the right direction.

Related posts:

gutsandgrowth