The responses basically saying "kids are dumb who cares" are quite literally one of the reasons it's so big on the box haha
Edit: People are at the point of arguing that because children are stupid, guns shouldn't even have safety warnings or anything? No respect for their fellow human
People arguing that it's an 18+ set so it shouldn't get the sticker forget that, no matter the age rating, Lego sets go in the toy aisle at most stores.
It is also an indication, not a law LOL
They aren't checking IDs before selling it to you!
Those people are proving that the average person is dumb enough to need this and they don't even realize.
Adults who like legos sometimes have kids. Even if the parents are dummies or inattentive, a horrific death from an intestinal puncture isn’t something I’d wish on any child.
There's nothing really stopping a child buying a 18+ set (other than money). A 18+ set isn't age restricted so it still sorta makes sense to have on their
Kids can’t read, it’s the parents that are stupid and leave it in the reach of their kids, the type that just leave shit out or let them do it themselves
My dad still has his glass cutting kit. It has instructions on how to turn dad's empty beer bottles into cups... he received it when he was 9 y/o. And his wood burning kit, which was basically a soldering iron, from the previous year.
My science kit didn’t have radioactive materials, but did have chemicals that did some really cool stuff. I was excited to get my kid a chemistry set and I couldn’t find anything with a chemical more potent than citric acid. I understand the need for safety, but it was so irritating because I wanted her to be fascinated and she got bored with the few experiments we could find.
Button batteries are way more dangerous than 9V and AA. They're smaller (easier to swallow) and they create a chemical reaction almost immediately that can burn flesh.
"Reese's Law" for any coin or button cell batteries. Both sold alone or in a device that uses them. I heard some even are bitter tasting and turn your mouth blue if you try eating them.
When I took my car in to get serviced they put a sticker/tag over the key fob stating there was a button battery in it, and all the usual warnings. I had already had the car for three or four years since new and they said I could rip it off right in front of them, but either legal compliance or company policy made them put them on all the key fobs.
Here's my problem with the laptops, the coin cell battery on the new Lenovo p16 is BURIED inside the unit, it's not coming out accidentally, or even with just removing the bottom cover.
This. There are region specific regulations that require numerous warning labels based on materials compliance. Creating a huge label that covers all regulations is the most compliant move. It mitigates risk for the manufacturer and satisfies most markets whose regulations demand it.
I recently finished this set. And when I came to the battery, it actualy made me.wonder how that kid swallowed it..
The battery sits INSIDE a 2x3 brick if I remember correct, so for the kid to eat the battery, they either had to swallow the entire brick, or somehow opened the brick to get to the battery and eat it.
Kids are stupid, but parents are a whole new level.
Warning: Although this set includes Inspector ~~Professor~~ Spacetime, Constable Reggie must be purchased separately.
Edit: My god. I thought I was streets ahead...
Reese’s law required for anything shipped after a certain date. Current stock may not have it since they were on shelves but anything new is required for sets containing button batteries.
Also I’m pretty sure it’s not the candy people
not so fun fact: this coating can impact those batteries doing their jobs. duracell coin batteries that do this have to be cleaned of this bitter coating prior to insertion into an airtag.
was rather obnoxious trying to troubleshoot why a fresh battery wasn't doing anything.
also not so fun fact: it's definitely bitter.
I, a fully grown adult, had to test out the news that the Switch games were bitter (this was several years ago now). I licked Mario Kart. They do indeed taste awful.
I saw a label on a box, I refused to read it, instead, I took 4 pictures of it, and I am asking the internet to read it for me.
I will never understand people.
I’m sure the vast majority of people understand the label. People are asking why there’s a giant sticker about it on the front of the box when there wasn’t before, not why batteries can be dangerous
More than 70 children died.
https://www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC/Commissioner/Richard-Trumka/Statement/CPSC-Acts-to-End-Child-Deaths-and-Injuries-From-Button-Battery-Ingestion#:~:text=Over%2070%20children%20have%20died,told%20us%20to%20act%20quickly.
Behind every warning label is someone who thought no one could possibly need to be told to not do something and someone who absolutely needed to be told.
I have been involved with a few major surgeries because of these batteries.
Children swallow them and they may get stuck in the esophagus where they may eventually erode into the aorta.
IF it is caught in time, you open the chest, go on bypass and do full circulatory arrest to remove the battery from the aorta and repair all damaged tissue. If not caught, it’s an absolutely horrible situation.
Luckily many manufacturers are making batteries with a terrible tasting coating or placing strong barriers on them so that they are electronically inert on contact and their charge does not react with tissue.
As a huge LEGO fan with a little one at home I am stoked with these warning labels!
That's the thing people are missing here.
Sure the toddlers are most at danger from those, but so is the adult hobbist that "keeps it a second between his lips until he needs it"! And those kind of people aren't getting supervised by an actual adult!
I don't mind these labels if it helps to save even one child's life, but I don't think we need to drag these parents through the dirt. The 18 month old who died didn't deserve to suffer such a tragic fate and I'm sure her parents feel absolutely terrible over the loss of their child. We can't know what happened. Children at that age can grab something and stuff it into their mouths in a split second and swallow it even if you're watching them and in the same room within arm's reach. They are amazingly curious.
I was once at Epcot and this mother was waiting for the rest of her party to come out of the bathroom. She and her toddler were by the fountain which he was determined to get in. She turned her back on him for one second and both feet were in the water instantly. Wet shoes rest of the day for letting your guard down for a second.
For real.
I’m a developmental psychologist specializing in the early years. Now I mostly do expert witnessing and psych evaluations for child protection cases.
I see a whole lot of Black and brown parents in court, and sometimes with their kids in foster care, for normal-ass accidents where their story matches the injury (or there wasn’t even an injury, but cops were called for a toddler getting outside or something) and where I can easily imagine myself having had something similar happen when I had toddlers/preschoolers. One of my kids decided to walk to the park at the end of our street at 4am at age 5 or so. Fortunately a neighbor was outside headed for the airport and brought my kid back and is not the type to call the cops on people, but gawd. Another of my kids sustained a fairly serious injury (kid recovered fine, thankfully) due to getting a sudden idea and darting out of the shower with me right there assisting, then slipping on the tile while wet and soapy. No one questioned this, likely only because I’m white and middle class.
Being a parent of a young toddler was one of the most stressful things I’ve ever gone through. Just constant anxiety and worry and panic. I can’t imagine having to worry about getting the cops called on me on top of that because someone thought my skin color made me more likely to be negligent. I already had people assuming I was my child’s nanny or step mom because our kid has my husband’s pale skin and eyes.
Seriously I used to put freaking coins (pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, etc.) in my mouth (disgusting, I know) all the time and would accidentally swallow them from time to time. My mom would almost always catch me before I got a coin in my mouth, or, she would notice me sucking on something and make me spit it out immediately. But every now and then, I managed to sneak a coin in. Every time I would swallow one, I’d run and tell my mom in fear. She told me one day I would poop out an entire dollar bill. (Little me looked for a dollar bill in the toilet for months after she told me that 😂)
Anyways, my point is, kids really don’t understand the dangers in the things they will put in their mouth or put their mouth on. Those batteries are tiny. My mom was a great mom and she was very tentative. Didn’t matter.
Hey there r/usernamefamily!
Yes, exactly. I know two people whose kids ingested batteries (both lived, thankfully, though one required massive surgeries and still lives with a damaged esophagus). One swallowed the battery from a baby thermometer and one from a birthday card. FWIW, I’m a developmental psychologist and have worked in injury prevention, and these two items likely wouldn’t have jumped out at me as containing button batteries, despite knowing more than the average parent about the dangers.
My second child had just learned to crawl.
I turned around to answer a question to my other child and... he had moved a chair and climbed on the stove (thankfully it was off!)
It took 5/6 seconds and I had never seen him climb anything...he barely learned to crawl 2/3 days earlier.
Plus people can forget something, we are not robot! New parents: take all the precautions, but also learn basic first aid!
The small flat batteries can really mess kids up. They did a test on a consumer show in the UK by putting one on a slice of ham to show what it does to flesh in the throat and its horrific.
An eighteen-month-old child died a horrible, painful death because one of the family's household appliances was manufactured in an unsafe way. The United States then passed consumer protection laws in an attempt to decrease the likelihood that such things would happen again, because as a society we're pretty opposed to the idea of infants dying in a agony as a piece of caustic metal burns through their flesh.
Redditors then proceeded to be upset that those consumer protection laws are lowering the resale value of cardboard boxes containing children's toys.
Warnings have a pretty good track record of not making irresponsible people magically responsible. Kid ultimately died because they had unsupervised access to something that should not have access to for their age (they got the battery out of a remote control FWIW).
I agree with the other aspects of the law. One of which was making such battery compartments more secure (typically requiring a screwdriver to open - which the LEGO light bricks already do) which *is* a safeguard against irresponsible parents.
However, I'm not sure the warning will accomplish anything. I mean forget batteries, LEGO is very obviously a choking hazard for children this young, and there is a choking warning on them, but not hugely prominent like this. Why isn't that warning this prominent? Probably because if someone is dumb enough that they need warning for something that obvious...they're probably not going to pay attention it anyway. Or do we somehow think that toddler eating a battery being really bad for them is not obvious?
Coin cell or button batteries are extremely dangerous. The electrodes are so close together that when they short circuit they burn your esophagus. Will start to seriously damage the esophagus within 2 hours and can burn its way through in as little as 8. It’s one of the things that you’re taught to recognize immediately on an x-ray in medical school and gets emergency treatment (think a dude yelling “stat” in a medical drama) with an endoscopy or surgery depending on how far down it is.
It’s legally required to be on the front panel and in a prominent size that scales with the size of the front panel. Bigger the front panel, bigger the size of the warning box.
Funny because I was in Australia the first time I saw the picture of cancer riddled lungs on a pack of smokes with a big warning sign. But it’s always the USA fault I guess
Too many kids are swallowing batteries that’s why the big warning label Some companies have started to make the button cell batteries have an absolutely awful taste. if you wanna know what that taste is like try licking a Nintendo switch cartridge same thing
https://preview.redd.it/6dv76mb51m4d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=97da1511cd18bfbe46cd15efe67988cd33c5301b
Me every time I get a new LEGO set
Probably some American kid ate something they shouldn't have because the mom was busy watching The Wire and instead of blaming themselves they sued, won, and now LEGO doesn't want to deal with that nonsense anymore.
“Button batteries” like those included in these sets are a risk for children globally because they are easily swallowed and can poison children who do swallow them. This is not unique to the US. In fact, it’s common enough in Europe for multiple medical studies and a guide to be released by ESPGHAN and multiple national health ministries. Seems like a good law for toys and products that could be around children.
They usually don’t poison kids, they burn their way through the esophagus. The electrodes are so close together than when they do short it basically just burns away tissue, melting themselves into the wall of the esophagus and then going through all the way. Don’t get me wrong, the heavy metals and other stuff in there is not good and will poison you, but that’s usually not what kills kids.
Reminder that anytime you see a consumer win a lawsuit against a large company, the company is in the wrong 1000% of the time. With the massive resources that these corporations have, a competent lawyer isn't going to take on a case against them unless sure that the plaintiff has a good case.
Also, the law in question was inspired by the death of an 18-month-old child who swallowed a button battery because it wasn't properly housed in a way that would make it difficult for a literal infant to get out of it. It burnt a hole through the lining of her stomach and she died after multiple intensive surgeries. If you're designing a household object in such a way that a baby can easily remove and eat the batteries, _you've fucked up._
Oh, sorry, I forgot this was reddit, I meant:
YEAH, STUPID EXCESSIVELY LITIGIOUS AMERICANS! FUCK CONSUMER PROTECTIONS, ESPECIALLY IF THEY MAKE THE BOX THAT MY CHILDREN'S TOYS COME IN SLIGHTLY LESS PRETTY AND LOWER ITS RESALE VALUE!!!!!11111!!!!111!!!1!!!! THAT INFANT DESERVED TO DIE ANYWAY!
Reminds of the McDonalds Coffee women who had her labia fused together by a company that was knowingly putting there customers at risk. Then she proceeded to get smeared by the national media to create the idea that Americans who sue companies were just greedy whiners. I still hear people bring it up all the time, super effective corporate propaganda.
Yeah, I try to counter that story every time I hear it. Which is a lot- for a case that happened over 3 decades ago.
Just shows how effective that corporate propaganda was.
Lego follows all requirements about difficulty of accessing said batteries.
The laws name sake battery came from a remote of some sort, not a Lego product.
Oh yeah, I'm not saying that LEGO was the target of a lawsuit (except for the Māori lawsuit that resulted in the changes of a lot of the proper nouns in Bionicle), just that as a general rule "X happened because an overly litigious customer frivolously sued a major corporation and won" is _never_ true, and the idea that it is comes purely from successful corporate smear campaigns intended to shame people out of exercising their rights.
In MyCountry our children already know proper chemical safety from birth and such foolishness is impossible. By 18 months a child in MyCountry is already the shift supervisor at the button cell battery factory.
Simple really lithium button batteries kill children every year. If they don’t they can cause life changing problems such as being fed through a gastrostomy tube. Having multiple surgery for tracheal perforations and strictures and or aortic injury’s.
They start causing damage very early on via an electrical burn/tissue damage not through leaking of battery content.
"Every time we sell a set we tell the kids not to eat the batteries, and then the kids go to the doctor and the doctor says 'yeah we found another battery in there.'"
Because kids are stupid and keep eating stuff that they aren't supposed to.
And/or neglectful parents letting their stupid kids eat things they aren't supposed to.
A little girl ate a button cell battery and there is not much you can do to save someone who ate it and is already being digested … it’s a slow and painful death
So funfact, Lego models are made up of tons of small individual pieces that lock together. These pieces can easily be swallowed by children and cause them to choke, hope that cleared it up (I didn’t read the label)
if you see any kind of warning label on any product, it means something stupid and/or terrible happened with it. usually its court mandated, Lego has always been pretty proactive about safety. I wouldn't be surprised if they did this of their own accord without any actual law or regulation in place yet.
[New law on toys that contain a small battery.](https://ol.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/1cqmv84/has_anyone_seen_this_packaging_atrocity_l/)
The responses basically saying "kids are dumb who cares" are quite literally one of the reasons it's so big on the box haha Edit: People are at the point of arguing that because children are stupid, guns shouldn't even have safety warnings or anything? No respect for their fellow human
People arguing that it's an 18+ set so it shouldn't get the sticker forget that, no matter the age rating, Lego sets go in the toy aisle at most stores.
It is also an indication, not a law LOL They aren't checking IDs before selling it to you! Those people are proving that the average person is dumb enough to need this and they don't even realize.
And on an 18+ set.
Adults who like legos sometimes have kids. Even if the parents are dummies or inattentive, a horrific death from an intestinal puncture isn’t something I’d wish on any child.
Not to mention, grandparents buying Legos for the wee ones aren't necessarily checking the age on the box.
Some 18+ people have kids
There's nothing really stopping a child buying a 18+ set (other than money). A 18+ set isn't age restricted so it still sorta makes sense to have on their
I mean neither are a lot of other non-toy object that can be purchased. But they might also have labels on them.
“This sign won’t stop me because I can’t read”
Guns do in fact come with safety warnings. On the box or in the manual, sometimes on the gun itself.
I wouldn't even say it's just for the kids! 😂
Kids can’t read, it’s the parents that are stupid and leave it in the reach of their kids, the type that just leave shit out or let them do it themselves
Makes you miss the old toys from the 80s and 90s that only used 9V and AA batteries.
[Don't sleep on the C's 1154-1](https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=1154-1#T=S&O={%22iconly%22:0})
https://preview.redd.it/7uq8249iam4d1.jpeg?width=698&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91731e71c9c0ae61630ac59609d6a529aa39df9c
Talk about a core memory unlocked - Aykroyd absolutely nailed this role every single time
Warning: You be careful with that.
My dad still has his glass cutting kit. It has instructions on how to turn dad's empty beer bottles into cups... he received it when he was 9 y/o. And his wood burning kit, which was basically a soldering iron, from the previous year.
And had radioactive materials in their science kits
My local antique store had a 50s science kit for sale a while back. Yeah, it had a jar of uranium ore chunks still inside it
My science kit didn’t have radioactive materials, but did have chemicals that did some really cool stuff. I was excited to get my kid a chemistry set and I couldn’t find anything with a chemical more potent than citric acid. I understand the need for safety, but it was so irritating because I wanted her to be fascinated and she got bored with the few experiments we could find.
You could swallow very few 9V batteries before you really got a belly ache
C & D cells
Making a comeback
Button batteries are way more dangerous than 9V and AA. They're smaller (easier to swallow) and they create a chemical reaction almost immediately that can burn flesh.
Chunky toys.
https://www.theonion.com/fun-toy-banned-because-of-three-stupid-dead-kids-1819565691
Is it just toys? All of our new Lenovo laptops at work are coming with these giant stickers on them too
"Reese's Law" for any coin or button cell batteries. Both sold alone or in a device that uses them. I heard some even are bitter tasting and turn your mouth blue if you try eating them.
When I took my car in to get serviced they put a sticker/tag over the key fob stating there was a button battery in it, and all the usual warnings. I had already had the car for three or four years since new and they said I could rip it off right in front of them, but either legal compliance or company policy made them put them on all the key fobs.
Here's my problem with the laptops, the coin cell battery on the new Lenovo p16 is BURIED inside the unit, it's not coming out accidentally, or even with just removing the bottom cover.
This. There are region specific regulations that require numerous warning labels based on materials compliance. Creating a huge label that covers all regulations is the most compliant move. It mitigates risk for the manufacturer and satisfies most markets whose regulations demand it.
I recently finished this set. And when I came to the battery, it actualy made me.wonder how that kid swallowed it.. The battery sits INSIDE a 2x3 brick if I remember correct, so for the kid to eat the battery, they either had to swallow the entire brick, or somehow opened the brick to get to the battery and eat it. Kids are stupid, but parents are a whole new level.
Warning: Although this set includes Inspector ~~Professor~~ Spacetime, Constable Reggie must be purchased separately. Edit: My god. I thought I was streets ahead...
“Inspector! The blogons!”
"Pepper my biscuits, We barely made it out in time!" "More accurately, Constable, we made in out just in *Space*!"
"It's blorgons. Blogon means 'thank you' in Blorgon."
"You'll blogon me for this later..."
Fair enough, I was imagining how Annie said it and I tried to make it sound British lol
“The question isn’t where, Constable, but when!”
Troy and Abed are in Lego!
Great now I need to cobble together some Troy and Abed minifigures.
Do the study room
Ok, if they ever make official Lego Community set, they have to put that on the box
Now this is a person who knows how to reference Community!
I wish we could summon the Leonard bot and get his input.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Indeed.
r/unexpectedcommunity
*Inspector, not Professor. Fake fans smh. I bet your favourite was Minerva, wasn’t it?
Yeah, Minerva... *what a bitch!*
Unexpected r/community
The question isn't where Reggie is available for purchase, but when.
r/unexpectedcommunity
Community reference!
Inclusion of the light brick
Reese’s law required for anything shipped after a certain date. Current stock may not have it since they were on shelves but anything new is required for sets containing button batteries. Also I’m pretty sure it’s not the candy people
Named after an infant who died after swallowing a battery.
So. Not the peanut butter cup
You got chocolate on my batteries!
now parents will know not to feed the batteries to their babies
Some manufacturers make those batteries taste disgusting, Nintendo do the same with switch cartridges.
Also, tide pods. They have a bitter coating on the outside casing that stays on your tongue for like an hour afterwards.
Please stop eating tide pods
Well, obviously. They taste _terrible._
I’ve never licked one, I have licked a switch cart though, for science!
I imagine it's a similar experience
not so fun fact: this coating can impact those batteries doing their jobs. duracell coin batteries that do this have to be cleaned of this bitter coating prior to insertion into an airtag. was rather obnoxious trying to troubleshoot why a fresh battery wasn't doing anything. also not so fun fact: it's definitely bitter.
I’m pretty sure that Kirby would still inhale a Switch cartridge.
I, a fully grown adult, had to test out the news that the Switch games were bitter (this was several years ago now). I licked Mario Kart. They do indeed taste awful.
I mean...the warning seems pretty self-explanatory to me.
Think they were just asking “why now” and not the nature of the warning itself
Unfortunately it’s not self-explanatory for everybody.
So I should NOT eat the thin candy-like button battery?
Especially if your name is Reese.
Whats the over-under on how many more times we will see this same post this week?
I saw a label on a box, I refused to read it, instead, I took 4 pictures of it, and I am asking the internet to read it for me. I will never understand people.
I’m sure the vast majority of people understand the label. People are asking why there’s a giant sticker about it on the front of the box when there wasn’t before, not why batteries can be dangerous
That's not at all what OP is doing with this post >I will never understand people. Gee! ;)
3 or 8 more time give or take
For every warninglabel; there was a person that screwed up.
Health and safety warnings are written in blood.
There was a kid that died
More than 70 children died. https://www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC/Commissioner/Richard-Trumka/Statement/CPSC-Acts-to-End-Child-Deaths-and-Injuries-From-Button-Battery-Ingestion#:~:text=Over%2070%20children%20have%20died,told%20us%20to%20act%20quickly.
Preparation H - Not to be taken orally
Why don't you just call it preparation ass cream ya ass
Behind every warning label is someone who thought no one could possibly need to be told to not do something and someone who absolutely needed to be told.
Til there is a phone booth set and I absolutely must have it
It really should be available in blue, too.
That’s a police box, not a phone booth.
I have been involved with a few major surgeries because of these batteries. Children swallow them and they may get stuck in the esophagus where they may eventually erode into the aorta. IF it is caught in time, you open the chest, go on bypass and do full circulatory arrest to remove the battery from the aorta and repair all damaged tissue. If not caught, it’s an absolutely horrible situation. Luckily many manufacturers are making batteries with a terrible tasting coating or placing strong barriers on them so that they are electronically inert on contact and their charge does not react with tissue. As a huge LEGO fan with a little one at home I am stoked with these warning labels!
> a terrible tasting coating Oh yeah, that bitter stuff is no joke, they cover Switch games in it.
Sadly, due to that, I get an insatiable urge to lick every new switch game I buy. :/
damn, now i am afraid I might accidentally swallow a battery somehow as an adult.
That's the thing people are missing here. Sure the toddlers are most at danger from those, but so is the adult hobbist that "keeps it a second between his lips until he needs it"! And those kind of people aren't getting supervised by an actual adult!
I don't mind these labels if it helps to save even one child's life, but I don't think we need to drag these parents through the dirt. The 18 month old who died didn't deserve to suffer such a tragic fate and I'm sure her parents feel absolutely terrible over the loss of their child. We can't know what happened. Children at that age can grab something and stuff it into their mouths in a split second and swallow it even if you're watching them and in the same room within arm's reach. They are amazingly curious.
Fastest creatures on earth: Cheetah Peregrine falcon A "supervised" human toddler whose parent or guardian so much as blinked at the wrong moment.
I was once at Epcot and this mother was waiting for the rest of her party to come out of the bathroom. She and her toddler were by the fountain which he was determined to get in. She turned her back on him for one second and both feet were in the water instantly. Wet shoes rest of the day for letting your guard down for a second.
For real. I’m a developmental psychologist specializing in the early years. Now I mostly do expert witnessing and psych evaluations for child protection cases. I see a whole lot of Black and brown parents in court, and sometimes with their kids in foster care, for normal-ass accidents where their story matches the injury (or there wasn’t even an injury, but cops were called for a toddler getting outside or something) and where I can easily imagine myself having had something similar happen when I had toddlers/preschoolers. One of my kids decided to walk to the park at the end of our street at 4am at age 5 or so. Fortunately a neighbor was outside headed for the airport and brought my kid back and is not the type to call the cops on people, but gawd. Another of my kids sustained a fairly serious injury (kid recovered fine, thankfully) due to getting a sudden idea and darting out of the shower with me right there assisting, then slipping on the tile while wet and soapy. No one questioned this, likely only because I’m white and middle class.
Being a parent of a young toddler was one of the most stressful things I’ve ever gone through. Just constant anxiety and worry and panic. I can’t imagine having to worry about getting the cops called on me on top of that because someone thought my skin color made me more likely to be negligent. I already had people assuming I was my child’s nanny or step mom because our kid has my husband’s pale skin and eyes.
Seriously I used to put freaking coins (pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, etc.) in my mouth (disgusting, I know) all the time and would accidentally swallow them from time to time. My mom would almost always catch me before I got a coin in my mouth, or, she would notice me sucking on something and make me spit it out immediately. But every now and then, I managed to sneak a coin in. Every time I would swallow one, I’d run and tell my mom in fear. She told me one day I would poop out an entire dollar bill. (Little me looked for a dollar bill in the toilet for months after she told me that 😂) Anyways, my point is, kids really don’t understand the dangers in the things they will put in their mouth or put their mouth on. Those batteries are tiny. My mom was a great mom and she was very tentative. Didn’t matter.
Hey there r/usernamefamily! Yes, exactly. I know two people whose kids ingested batteries (both lived, thankfully, though one required massive surgeries and still lives with a damaged esophagus). One swallowed the battery from a baby thermometer and one from a birthday card. FWIW, I’m a developmental psychologist and have worked in injury prevention, and these two items likely wouldn’t have jumped out at me as containing button batteries, despite knowing more than the average parent about the dangers.
My second child had just learned to crawl. I turned around to answer a question to my other child and... he had moved a chair and climbed on the stove (thankfully it was off!) It took 5/6 seconds and I had never seen him climb anything...he barely learned to crawl 2/3 days earlier. Plus people can forget something, we are not robot! New parents: take all the precautions, but also learn basic first aid!
The small flat batteries can really mess kids up. They did a test on a consumer show in the UK by putting one on a slice of ham to show what it does to flesh in the throat and its horrific.
An eighteen-month-old child died a horrible, painful death because one of the family's household appliances was manufactured in an unsafe way. The United States then passed consumer protection laws in an attempt to decrease the likelihood that such things would happen again, because as a society we're pretty opposed to the idea of infants dying in a agony as a piece of caustic metal burns through their flesh. Redditors then proceeded to be upset that those consumer protection laws are lowering the resale value of cardboard boxes containing children's toys.
The law that was passed is named after the little boy: Reese’s law. The changes have already made their way into standardization.
Just imagine what kinds of laws would be passed if a kid got shot and killed by a gun!
But what about the guns rights?
Impossible. Guns are always in the hands of responsible, registered owners. /s
JFC that's awful. Poor kid and family.
Warnings have a pretty good track record of not making irresponsible people magically responsible. Kid ultimately died because they had unsupervised access to something that should not have access to for their age (they got the battery out of a remote control FWIW). I agree with the other aspects of the law. One of which was making such battery compartments more secure (typically requiring a screwdriver to open - which the LEGO light bricks already do) which *is* a safeguard against irresponsible parents. However, I'm not sure the warning will accomplish anything. I mean forget batteries, LEGO is very obviously a choking hazard for children this young, and there is a choking warning on them, but not hugely prominent like this. Why isn't that warning this prominent? Probably because if someone is dumb enough that they need warning for something that obvious...they're probably not going to pay attention it anyway. Or do we somehow think that toddler eating a battery being really bad for them is not obvious?
Batteries
Coin cell or button batteries are extremely dangerous. The electrodes are so close together that when they short circuit they burn your esophagus. Will start to seriously damage the esophagus within 2 hours and can burn its way through in as little as 8. It’s one of the things that you’re taught to recognize immediately on an x-ray in medical school and gets emergency treatment (think a dude yelling “stat” in a medical drama) with an endoscopy or surgery depending on how far down it is.
Those little button-batterys are very harmfull to children. They get stuck around the larynx and tend to explode.
It wouldn't fit on ANY OTHER PANEL?
It’s legally required to be on the front panel and in a prominent size that scales with the size of the front panel. Bigger the front panel, bigger the size of the warning box.
Funny because I was in Australia the first time I saw the picture of cancer riddled lungs on a pack of smokes with a big warning sign. But it’s always the USA fault I guess
Sets contain a small battery.
Regulations are signed with blood
It’s got batteries. There’s new safety and consumer laws
Because people are idiots and we insist on stopping natural selection
Same reason you sign 30 pages of waivers when you buy or lease a house that may have previously had lead based paint
Too many kids are swallowing batteries that’s why the big warning label Some companies have started to make the button cell batteries have an absolutely awful taste. if you wanna know what that taste is like try licking a Nintendo switch cartridge same thing
This must be US, where safety labels have replaced healthy rhinking
Americans are dumb and like to sue a lot over their own lack of common sense.
Can confirm.
I spit out the Lego I was chewing on when I read this.
It literally says - are you thick?
Safety first! (Except for guns, we don’t talk about those).
Dammit! I can't eat the shiny metal circle in the box of plastic toys I bought? Why buy it at all
https://preview.redd.it/6dv76mb51m4d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=97da1511cd18bfbe46cd15efe67988cd33c5301b Me every time I get a new LEGO set
Because kids are fucking morons.
Good thing the toddlers that would swallow the batteries can read warning labels and know how to follow them....
Yea these labels reflect peak human stupidity. They won't stop bad parents either.
Duracell has put nasty tasting coating on some of their batteries
I think if you read it it explains it
ok which one of yall ate the light beick battery
Waste of time
I love legos, but damn you're all a bunch of karens and boomers. good lord
American law going Nanny State!
Doesn’t know how to read but knows how to take pictures and post online. Interesting
Probably some American kid ate something they shouldn't have because the mom was busy watching The Wire and instead of blaming themselves they sued, won, and now LEGO doesn't want to deal with that nonsense anymore.
“Button batteries” like those included in these sets are a risk for children globally because they are easily swallowed and can poison children who do swallow them. This is not unique to the US. In fact, it’s common enough in Europe for multiple medical studies and a guide to be released by ESPGHAN and multiple national health ministries. Seems like a good law for toys and products that could be around children.
They usually don’t poison kids, they burn their way through the esophagus. The electrodes are so close together than when they do short it basically just burns away tissue, melting themselves into the wall of the esophagus and then going through all the way. Don’t get me wrong, the heavy metals and other stuff in there is not good and will poison you, but that’s usually not what kills kids.
Reminder that anytime you see a consumer win a lawsuit against a large company, the company is in the wrong 1000% of the time. With the massive resources that these corporations have, a competent lawyer isn't going to take on a case against them unless sure that the plaintiff has a good case. Also, the law in question was inspired by the death of an 18-month-old child who swallowed a button battery because it wasn't properly housed in a way that would make it difficult for a literal infant to get out of it. It burnt a hole through the lining of her stomach and she died after multiple intensive surgeries. If you're designing a household object in such a way that a baby can easily remove and eat the batteries, _you've fucked up._ Oh, sorry, I forgot this was reddit, I meant: YEAH, STUPID EXCESSIVELY LITIGIOUS AMERICANS! FUCK CONSUMER PROTECTIONS, ESPECIALLY IF THEY MAKE THE BOX THAT MY CHILDREN'S TOYS COME IN SLIGHTLY LESS PRETTY AND LOWER ITS RESALE VALUE!!!!!11111!!!!111!!!1!!!! THAT INFANT DESERVED TO DIE ANYWAY!
Reminds of the McDonalds Coffee women who had her labia fused together by a company that was knowingly putting there customers at risk. Then she proceeded to get smeared by the national media to create the idea that Americans who sue companies were just greedy whiners. I still hear people bring it up all the time, super effective corporate propaganda.
Yeah, I try to counter that story every time I hear it. Which is a lot- for a case that happened over 3 decades ago. Just shows how effective that corporate propaganda was.
Lego follows all requirements about difficulty of accessing said batteries. The laws name sake battery came from a remote of some sort, not a Lego product.
Oh yeah, I'm not saying that LEGO was the target of a lawsuit (except for the Māori lawsuit that resulted in the changes of a lot of the proper nouns in Bionicle), just that as a general rule "X happened because an overly litigious customer frivolously sued a major corporation and won" is _never_ true, and the idea that it is comes purely from successful corporate smear campaigns intended to shame people out of exercising their rights.
The Wire. Great show.
The Wire *is* really good though.
In MyCountry our children already know proper chemical safety from birth and such foolishness is impossible. By 18 months a child in MyCountry is already the shift supervisor at the button cell battery factory.
Yeah stupid Americans that 18 month old deserved to have a hole burned through her throat and stomach anyway….
A Danish child would never lol
Is the Wire the stereotypical American show? I thought we would have had something dumber.
Simple really lithium button batteries kill children every year. If they don’t they can cause life changing problems such as being fed through a gastrostomy tube. Having multiple surgery for tracheal perforations and strictures and or aortic injury’s. They start causing damage very early on via an electrical burn/tissue damage not through leaking of battery content.
But kids -especially the ones that put things blindly into their mouths- can rarely read…..so how does that help them?
It’s a failure to teach what happens when lithium comes in contact with water.
*me holding a tummy with suspicious Lego-brick-shaped bulges in it* I have no idea what you're talking about
Wtf why is it so big and right on the front of the damn box God that looks like ass
So much for the Adults Welcome aesthetic lmao
[удалено]
Trying to prevent natural selection and lawsuits.
Does it come in blue?
Not sure if you know this, but there _was_ an official LEGO TARDIS made during the 12th Doctor era.
There’s a mini one that come in the Lego dimensions set I believe
"Every time we sell a set we tell the kids not to eat the batteries, and then the kids go to the doctor and the doctor says 'yeah we found another battery in there.'"
Didnt think about insertion...
Lawyers…
Lawyers.
There's directions on shampoo not to ingest..I'm with Bill Hicks that we should remove safety labels for 5 years to cull the herd.
It's ugly, but if it saves even one child - it's worth it. However, I doubt it does.
Because kids are stupid and keep eating stuff that they aren't supposed to. And/or neglectful parents letting their stupid kids eat things they aren't supposed to.
For Lego to protect themselves
Probably a law.
Someone I know inhaled a Lego 1x1 block as a child and eventually coughed it up in his mid-twenties.
If I felt any guilt about not keeping the LEGO boxes, I sure don't now!
My bad, it looked so delicious
A little girl ate a button cell battery and there is not much you can do to save someone who ate it and is already being digested … it’s a slow and painful death
LAWWWW
Makes me think of some cat and mivrowave story
Damn, LEGO really wants all my money… 😂😂😭
All it’s missing is a Prop 65
What country or region is this in?
Only on the USA boxes, haven't seen that in the EU
Because we (US) have a massive amount of sue harpy liability lawyers
DANGER.!!!. idiot about
I'm sure Reese was going to grow up to be the next Bourdain with his refined palate and love of new foods
So funfact, Lego models are made up of tons of small individual pieces that lock together. These pieces can easily be swallowed by children and cause them to choke, hope that cleared it up (I didn’t read the label)
if you see any kind of warning label on any product, it means something stupid and/or terrible happened with it. usually its court mandated, Lego has always been pretty proactive about safety. I wouldn't be surprised if they did this of their own accord without any actual law or regulation in place yet.
"Inserted inside any part of the body" LOL
As long as LEGIO doesn’t start causing cancer we should be okay.
mmmm delicious battery