Consumer Product Safety Commission issues new magnet safety guidelines

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Attention families there are new federal safety standards in place to protect children from dangerous, even deadly, magnets.

"These are extremely dangerous, they're so strong that they can tear through someone's intestines," said Sara Cohen of Philadelphia's Graduate Hospital section.

You might remember Cohen. Back in December 2019, her 7-year-old son had emergency surgery after swallowing two tiny magnetic balls called rare-earth magnets.

Cohen says the magnets perforated his intestine and created holes.

"In between the two magnets was three loops of bowel that had been impinged that were in the way," she said.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission effectively banned the product back in 2012 and cases of injury went down, but after manufacturers appealed, a federal court lifted the ban four years later.

"Right after that, we saw that the number of injuries, injuries skyrocketed afterwards, going back up and that's what we're dealing with now," said CPSC Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that 26,600 magnet ingestions were treated in hospital ERs from 2010 through 2021.

The CPSC is aware of seven deaths involving the ingestion of hazardous magnets and the majority of the incidents likely involved magnet sets.

"And even in the cases where the child doesn't die, you have life-changing effects for children with the damage that they can do," said Hoehn-Saric.

So Wednesday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced brand new mandatory federal safety standards restricting size and strength.

"Making sure that the magnets that are out there either are too large to swallow or just aren't strong enough so that it causes this problem," he said.

The CPSC also continues to urge anyone who may already have these magnets in their homes to throw them away immediately.

The new rule applies to magnets intended to be used for consumer entertainment or stress relief. It also applies to jewelry, including children's jewelry.

Action News reached out to the manufacturer of the product the Cohens bought and did not hear back.

But Action News did talk to Shihan Qu, the head of Zen Magnets, who was instrumental in getting rare-earth magnets back on the market. He agrees they are dangerous for children and should never be marketed or sold as toys.

Full statement from Shihan Qu of Zen Magnets:

"They are terribly dangerous to children and should not be sold as toys.. If you search zen magnets, you'll find competitors of ours selling them to children. I wonder why the CPSC isn't doing their job. They're doing less than they were doing back in 2012. We can't even sue the CPSC do their job since they are an administrative agency who has the right to selective enforcement. We fought the ban in the first place because it didn't make sense for high-powered magnets to be harder to obtain than ammunition for adults. We want reasonable regulation but the CPSC has stood in the way the whole time and now they're doing less than ever before. Zen Magnets are marketed for adults only. We've always marketed them only for adults. Our magnets have more warnings than the average chainsaw rental."