Consumer Product Safety Commission issues recall, warnings concerning toys with magnetic balls

Federal safety officials are warning about magnetic toys made by seven different companies.

ByNydia Han KTRK logo
Friday, December 8, 2023
Consumer Product Safety Commission issues recall, warnings concerning toys with magnetic balls
Federal safety officials are warning about magnetic toys made by seven different companies.

PHILADELPHIA -- Federal safety officials have issued warnings about magnetic toys made by seven different companies, telling consumers to get rid of them immediately.

Experts have been sounding the alarm on magnetic toys for many years now. When the high-powered magnets are swallowed, they can attract each other, or another metal object and become lodged in the digestive system.

On Thursday, the CPSC urged families once again to throw these products away.

"These are extremely dangerous. They're so strong that they can tear through someone's intestines," said Sara Cohen in 2019.

Cohen shared that two magnets perforated her son's intestine after he swallowed them when he was 7 years old.

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

Cohen's son recovered after surgery but the CPSC is aware of seven deaths involving the ingestion of hazardous magnets and 24-hundred injuries from 2017 through 2021.

The CPSC announced a recall of high-powered magnetic balls made by XpressGoods.

It also issued warnings about similar products made by five other companies (Allvre, Sunny House, Ming Tai, Magic QQ and Carrara) as well as a warning about the SplishSplash reusable water balloons with high-powered magnets inside the rims.

Magnetic toys like these were banned by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2012 but manufacturers appealed and a federal court lifted that ban years later.

"Xpress Goods" high powered magnetic balls recalled due to deaths.