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Re-activateMega Brands, the company that made Magnetix building sets, has agreed to pay a $1.1 million civil penalty to settle claims that the company failed to give the government timely information about the dangers of the magnets in the building sets. (Magnet is pictured at bottom of image at right.)
After the death of a 22-month-old child who had ingested Magnetix pieces in 2005, Rose Art (the forerunner of Mega Brands) filed an "initial report" with the Consumer Product Safety Commission in which it attributed the magnets falling out to unusually abusive play by the toddler's older siblings.
In February 2006, the company submitted a "full report" that again lacked incident and product information, saying it did not retain such records. The following month 4 million Magnetix sets were recalled for users under age six.
The CPSC subpoenaed records from Rose Art, which by that time had been acquired and renamed Mega Brands, and learned that at the time of the initial report, the company had received more than 1,100 consumer complaints that magnets had fallen out of plastic pieces from dozens of different Magnetix models. In addition, the CPSC learned that the company had gotten at least one report of an injury due to magnet ingestion before the toddler's death in Washington state.
By the time the company agreed to the March 2006 recall it had gotten more than 1,500 complaints of magnets falling out of plastic pieces in more than 65 different models of Magnetix. In April 2007, Mega Brands expanded the recall for users of every age after more than 25 children suffered intestinal injuries that required surgery to remove the magnets.
Parents should note that potentially millions of recalled magnetic sets remain in homes today and may be accessible to young children. (See how to prevent choking accidents.)
Read the rest of this post on our Safety blog. And see the CPSC's guide to the Magnetix recall for more information.
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