cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/45088835
A 13-year-old boy in New Zealand swallowed up to 100 high-power magnets he bought on Temu, forcing surgeons to remove tissue from his intestines, doctors said on Oct 24.
After suffering four days of abdominal pain, the unnamed teen was taken to Tauranga Hospital on the North Island.
“He disclosed ingesting approximately 80 to 100 5x2mm high-power (neodymium) magnets about one week prior,” said a report by hospital doctors in the New Zealand Medical Journal.
The magnets, which have been banned in New Zealand since January 2013, were bought on online shopping platform Temu, they said.
An X-ray showed the magnets had clumped together in four straight lines inside the child’s intestines.
“These appeared to be in separate parts of bowel adhered together due to magnetic forces,” they said.
[…]
Surgeons operated to remove the dead tissue and retrieve the magnets, and the child was able to return home after an eight-day spell in hospital.
“This case highlights not only the dangers of magnet ingestion but also the dangers of the online marketplace for our paediatric population,” said the authors of the paper, Dr Binura Lekamalage, Dr Lucinda Duncan-Were and Dr Nicola Davis.
Surgery for ingestion of magnets can lead to complications later in life such as bowel obstruction, abdominal hernia and chronic pain, they said.
[…]
I have … hmm … questions … but I guess a ban was in order … I mean given the … circumstances … but why!?
I wonder why they banned them. Were a lot of children eating then? What do you do if you need a small powerful magnet?
So, New Zealanders can’t magnetize their Warhammer minis? What do they do if there are rule changes that affect their unit loadout? This is a human rights abuse!
I think the post actually stated ‘banned’, not band.
And actually it’s auto correct that will be the end of us.
Magnets are banned in New Zealand?
Banning teenagers was considered less practical.
It did have a higher popular support tho.
The post States that the subject of the band are the small magnets.
Reading comprehension is going to be the end of us.
I think the post actually stated ‘banned’, not band.
And actually it’s auto correct that will be the end of us.
There’s a lot of worse things that could be the end of us…zombie kittens, for example
Some like Bucky Balls are banned in the USA as well.
now they’ll never know how they work.
The real question that remains unanswered: why the fuck did that boy try to earn a Darwin Award? One or two would be an accident, 100 is done on purpose
Nearest I can imagine is that he wanted to have a magnetic spot on his stomach for party tricks/TikToks.
MagSafe bellybutton.
I get an unsupervised toddler eating something they shouldn’t have been able to get to in the first place…
A 13 years old should at least have a functional brain.
Not all of them do, especially mentally unwell children or ones with developmental disorders
I would like to remind you of Tide pods, planking, and ghost riding the wip.
Not fair to through planking in there.
Planking was just lying down on things, so hardly an instance of teenagers endangering themselves.
The tide pod thing wasn’t exactly what it seemed to be. Some children with learning disabilities and some people with dementia had died from mistaking laundry pods for food. At some point, some media outlets decided to sensationalise it by leaving out the bit about learning disabilities. That meant that there were teenagers who thought other teenagers had died from eating them, so they could make videos pretending they’d done that, just like teenagers have staged videos to make it look like they’re doing dangerous things that they aren’t really doing ever since people have let them have cameras. Some of them decided that the easiest way to pretend was to put a real laundry pod in their mouth, pretend to chew it and swallow, pretend to die, and then cut the video and spit it out. If they checked the relevant warnings on the packet, they just said not to eat them and to rinse their eyes if they got any there, so this plan might seem safe. However, laundry pods are so corrosive against mucous membranes that putting one in your mouth and spitting it out immediately because it starts to burn immediately can still be fatal or cause permanent injury. The media reported the deaths and injuries as if teenagers were intentionally eating laundry pods, rather than pretending in a way the packet implied might be safe, so most people weren’t learning that pretending was also deadly and that the warnings on the packet weren’t exhaustive, so it just made fake tide pod challenge videos even more tempting. If the reporting had been more responsible, then most people would have first heard even pretending to eat laundry pods can kill rather than teenagers are eating laundry pods.
I only knew snippets of this as well even years later so I appreciate the rundown. Thanks for typing it up!
Was scratching my head wondering what got him into swallowing so many of those magnets for no other logical reason in the first place, except maybe because of some online Tiktok dare where logic is thrown out of the window.
Free bus rides. Just stick to the side.
Not gonna lie, banning 5x2mm magnets is insane. They’re very useful, I’ve seen countless DIY projects or 3D print models that use them and in general they’re just handy. It seems insane to me to ban them for such a reason. There are infinite ways in which children can hurt themselves, should we ban stoves because they can get hot? That ban sounds a bit too much to me.
The ban was specifically in the context of toys.
We banned toy magnets. Magnets for other purposes are still completely legal.
Ah, ok, thar is some much needed context
Exactly. I never heard of a magnet ban in my life.
Bucky Balls were banned in the USA for 4 or 5 years.
But how do they work?
“You can’t explain that.” ~ Bill O’Reilly
Magnetic field comes in and field comes out. You can’t explain that
I am almost afraid to ask… but why eat magnets?
It could be a desperate suicide attempt. The magnets get trapped in the bowels by sticking together at various points, necrotizing or rupturing the intestines or other tissues, which can cause peritonitis or ultimately sepsis, which can be fatal.
Pica?
How else is he going to get out all the metal shards he ate?! It’s like if a bird gets stuck in the wall and you use a cat to get the bird out!
What are you smoking and can I have some, please?
I think the kid might’ve been avoiding hardware disease
They do that by feeding cows magnets.
(no but seriously 100 small magnets on purpose is something else)
Of course, you just gotta wrestle the bag from the racoon!
I have very little sympathy for any 13 year old dumb enough to eat magnets. I have zero sympathy for any 13 year old that ate a hundred of them.
It didn’t say in the article but would you have empathy if he was special needs. Because I am also at a loss for how a non special needs child could eat hundreds of magnets
I kinda get it. These things come as a cylinder. He didn’t so much swallow 100 individual magnets, but rather swallowed a complete cylinder package of them. The x-ray tends to confirm that.
Still, if you’re 13 years old, you’re old enough to understand why you shouldn’t swallow everything in front of you.
Yea I feel like Temu is not at fault here, but rather, a lack of parents and a lack of brain
How do we know this wasnt a stupid TikTok trend like the forbidden fruit/tidepod thing?
Maybe ban or actively filter that shit first?
Another massive brain skill issue, lack of education, and no parents
It wasn’t illegal to eat dirt and worms when I was a kid, but my parents told me not to, so I didn’t.
You don’t need the governments controlling children through laws. Parents have that role. And education. End of story.
That’s on dumb parents sticking a tablet or a phone in their kids face before they can even learn to walk, so they don’t have to engage with them or put any effort towards raising them, such people should stop reproducing and the world will be a better place for it
Reading helps.
The magnets, which have been banned in New Zealand since January 2013, were bought on online shopping platform Temu.
As an older Queer, i gotta tell you “They are bad because it’s illegal” is not a good argument
It’s bad that they shipped them to a place where they’re illegal.
But if it’s illegal that must mean it’s bad?
Ok now that we established that I have to go mindlessly coagulate in front of my 60th re-run of NCIS.
And? If you need to ban magnets country wide, the issue is probably the country’s education system, not the magnets or the seller of the magnets.
You know what else helps? Having a brain, and parents that aren’t incompetent.
Yeah, having a brain is generally helpful. Just think before you type.
Low quality ragebait
No it’s still parents and brain related.
Fucking christ NZ can’t even have magnets?!
That sounds like something the british would do.
Well hearing Trump rant against magnets might happen to the US soon as well
Given the level of unchecked malice we’re facing at the hands of said government, I expect more edible magnets to suddenly become available.
I’m sure that’s next on his list lmao.
Even I know not to eat magnets ffs.
And you’re a dumbass
Exactly!
Damn, ain’t seen your name for a while.
This is fucking stupid. A 13 year old is old enough to read the “don’t fucking eat this you dumbass” labels on the packaging. Do you know how useful neodymium magnets are? You’re gonna just ban them cuz this kid’s dumb enough to swallow a hundred fucking rare earth magnets and didn’t go to the doctor for half a week? Stupid
Magnets from Temu were probably just loose in a bag or some bubble wrap with no warning label. People should know they’re not food anyway, but defying a warning label wasn’t the particular flavour of dumbness exhibited here.
I had to double take at neodymium — wtf!!! Neodymium is completely standard for audio drivers, where the choice of the magnet is actually very important! My good old Philips 2XHR literally proudly advertise on the shell that they have a 50mm neodymium dynamic driver inside them… banning them is ridiculous
Next they’re going to ban CR2032 button cells
(I was gonna put a /s at the end but I can vividly imagine that happening now :/ )
Not sure if you’re aware, but Duracell and probably others coat button batteries in a chemical that tastes bad in order to discourage ingestion.
I see where these regulations are coming from, but we can’t just ban away anything that could be harmful. I just recently bought a bunch of magnets like these for a using in 3D printed models. I don’t have any kids, but I do have pets and so they’re stored away in their own case and not left around. People just need to be responsible. I mean, we don’t ban bleach but you sure as hell shouldn’t drink it!
I was at a company picknic this summer and was watching people trying to play a pitiful version of Lawn Darts. The darts were weighted but would just bounce off the ground and ruin a good shot. Lawn darts, or darts of any kind, simply don’t work as a game when you take the pointy end away. I will say though, that a company outing where there’s people milling about is not a good place to play lawn darts, so I wouldn’t have used the real ones here even if you could.
Proper product packaging, like we use in medicine canisters, and perhaps an extra disclaimer/waiver on purchase is the way to go on these things IMO.
I agree that most of these safety bans are stupid. Lawn darts though? I don’t see a reason for the old version. Sure, without a dart it may bounce, but that becomes part of the game. It’s like some saying horseshoes is ruined because they bounce sometimes. Or curling is ruined because the stone slides too far. It’s just more skill that’s needed to account for the fact it could bounce.
Lawn darts was a dangerous game to begin with, so I’m not too shaken up about losing it, but I disagree that the bouncing is part of the game. No ground is perfectly even, and you can’t see imperfections from where you throw. It just creates randomness and makes it not worth playing. These aren’t issues in the other examples you cited. My opinion, obviously.
You could say the same about puting in golf. Reading the ground is a huge part of it. It’s something good players do and bad players don’t.
I don’t think you can compare a park/field to a manicured putting green. You can’t see the ground through the grass. Either way, play it if you like, to each their own.
Denatonoum Benzoate.
Intensely bitter compound used to prevent people from putting them into their mouths. Examples include nail polishes (to help nail biting habits), button cell batteries, and even Nintendo switch cartridges.
Denatonium - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium
Also if you’re having trouble with a low power devices with button cells. Wiping them down with isopropyl alcohol to clean off the bitter coating can help. Both my car keyfob and an AirTag both started working again after cleaning the brand new batteries.
In Australia CR2032s have a double wall thick plastic blister packaging that is basically impossible to open.
You need scissors AND some time.
This is an example of a sensible control. Double walled, difficult to open packages may be a small inconvenience for adults, but it makes it near impossible for a toddler to open. Button cell batteries are seriously dangerous if swallowed.
Banning neodymium magnets is fucking stupid, and unfortunately the world seems to be heading in the direction of banning everything in the name of “safety”.
Same in the US, apparently. I bought some to replace my car key remote battery. Guess what I don’t have in my car? Any kind of scissors.
Not to harp on you but one of those old school keychain Swiss Army knives should be on your key ring
Knife
In public
Not looking for a stiff fine or gaol time. Yes, a Swiss Army Knife on your keyring is considered a dangerous weapon here too.
(Legally, there is an exception for Utility knives, if you ‘have a good reason’ but it’s never given, people have been fined for having box cutters)
Usually I carry a little Leatherman folding knife, but I didn’t grab it that morning because I was just stepping out to replace a battery. I didn’t expect it to be a whole ordeal.
Don’t forget the ink
Yeah stop banning everything that can hurt you because ONE person does something stupid. Like we say in my language, one time is zero times. Everything can hurt you. If many people start doing it, maybe it’s time to consider a ban.
For example, a big contention of 16 year olds being able to drink was one teenager going to a bar and drinking 43 shots of tequila and killing himself.
That should be a case of the bartender being guilty of manslaughter or something. “Accessory to the death of another” or summit? I dunno. Nobody should be served 43 shots, let alone children.
They’re banned since 2014 because apparently multiple people had the idea to eat them for whatever reason
Better ban the ocean then. I heard millions of people decide to go swimming in it every day and some of them drown.
What the shit aotearoa
The magnets, which have been banned in New Zealand since January 2013, were bought on online shopping platform Temu, they said They did not. One could argue that the ban may or may not make sense (preferably after looking up the specifics), but your statement is wrong.
I know the ban was before the event, you get what I meant.
