Example #1
IF YOU ARE USING MR. CLEAN MAGIC ERASERS....STOP!
HI EVERYONE, JUST WANTED TO LET YOU ALL KNOW THAT I AM A HUGE FAN OF
MAGIC ERASERS.....HOWEVER, I HAVE A FRIEND THAT TOOK ENGINEERING IN
SCHOOL AND HE NOW WORKS FOR A HUGE COMPANY IN HALIFAX AND THEY GET THE
HEADS UP ABOUT PRODUCTS BEFORE ANYONE ELSE.WELL HE CALLED ME LAST NIGHT
REGARDING MAGIC ERASERS AND SAID THAT THEY ARE SLOWLY BEING BANNED
BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN THE INGREDIENT FORMALDEHYDE. YES THE CHEMICAL THEY
USE TO PRESERVE DEAD PEOPLE. IT IS HIGHLY DANGEROUS TO YOUNG CHILDREN
AND CAN BE HARMFUL TO YOURSELF, SO PLEASE IF YOU ARE USING THEM, THROW
THEM AWAY, DON'T BUY THEM ANYMORE AND PLEASE SEND THIS ON TO ANYONE WHOM
YOU THINK MIGHT USE THEM, ESPECIALLY WITH YOUNG CHILDREN.
Example #2
Chemical Burns to Children
One of my five year old's favorite
chores around the house is cleaning scuff marks off the walls, doors,
and baseboards with either an Easy
Eraser pad, or the real deal, a Mr.
Clean Magic Eraser. I purchased a package of Magic Erasers
ages ago when they first came out. I remember reading the box, wondering
what the "Magic" component was that cleaned crayon off my
walls with ease. No ingredients were listed and absolutely no warnings
were on the box, other than "Do not ingest."
My package of the Scotchbrite Easy
Erasers didn't have a warning either and since my child knew not to eat
the sponges and keep them out of reach of his little brother and sister,
it was a chore I happily let him do.
If I had known that both brands (and
others like them) contain a harmful alkaline or "base"
chemical (opposite of acid on the pH scale) that can burn your skin, I
never would have let my little boy handle them. As you can see from the
picture, when the Scotchbrite Easy Eraser was rubbed against his face
and chin, he received severe chemical burns.
At first, I thought he was being
dramatic. I picked him up, put him on the counter top and washed his
face with soap and water. He was screaming in pain. I put some lotion on
his face - more agony. I had used a Magic Eraser to remove magic marker
from my own knuckles a while back and I couldn't understand why he was
suddenly in pain. Then, almost immediately, the large, shiny, blistering
red marks started to spread across his cheeks and chin.
I quickly searched Google.com
for "Magic Eraser Burn" and turned up several results. I was
shocked. These completely innocent looking white foam sponges can burn
you?
I called our pediatrician, and of
course got sent to voice mail. I hung up and called the Hospital and
spoke to an Emergency Room nurse. She told me to call Poison Control.
The woman at Poison Control said she was surprised nobody had sued these
companies yet and walked me through the process of neutralizing the
alkaline to stop my son's face from continually burning more every
second.
I had already, during my frantic phone
calling, tried patting some numbing antibiotic cream on his cheeks, and
later some Aloe Vera gel - both resulted in screams of pain. The Poison
Control tech had me fill a bathtub with warm water, lay my son into it,
cover him with a towel to keep him warm and then use a soft washcloth to
rinse his face and chin with cool water for a continuous 20 minutes.
My son calmed down immediately. He
told me how good it felt. I gave him a dose of Tylenol and after the
twenty minutes was up, he got dressed in his Emergency Room doctor
Halloween costume and off we went to the Hospital.
They needed to make sure the chemical
burn had stopped burning, and examine his face to determine if the burn
would need to be debrided (from my fuzzy recollection of hospital work,
this means removing loose tissue from a burn location). My son was
pretty happy at the hospital, they were very nice and called him
"Doctor" and let him examine some of their equipment. The
water had successfully stopped the burning and helped soothe a lot of
the pain. I'm sure Tylenol was helping too.
They sent us home with more Aloe Vera
gel, Polysporin antibiotic cream, and some other numbing burn creams. By
the time we got home, my son was crying again. I tried applying some of
the creams but he cried out in pain. Water seemed to be what worked the
best.
After a rough night, I took the above
photo in the morning. He was swollen and wouldn't move his lips very
much to avoid moving the skin on his taut cheeks. I was fighting back
the tears, and I said, "Oh honey, I wish I could take it away from
you. I wish I could take it off your face and put it on mine." He
was so shocked, he started to tear up a little and said, "Mom, no.
You don't want this on your face, it hurts so much. You would be
hurting. Last night was terrible, I couldn't sleep, and you wouldn't be
able to sleep either." It just broke my heart into five trillion
pieces - as much as he is hurting, he wouldn't want me to be hurting in
his place.
Today he is doing much better. The
burns have started to scab over, and in place of red, raw, angry, skin
we have a deeper red, rough healing layer. I can touch his skin now,
without it stinging, and this morning he went back to Pre-School with
Polysporin rubbed all over his face. He announced to the class, "I
brought my face for Show and Tell!"
--
Note - he was doing fine as of Friday.
Kudos to this diligent parent for informing us all.
