
DANGER! WARNING!
Water Beads can be Toxic!
We have a new website! After many years of prayer and hard work our family is embarking on a new journey as a nonprofit.
We have a new website! After many years of prayer and hard work our family is embarking on a new journey as a nonprofit.
Please feel free to reach out to displaynotplay@gmail.com if you do not see your question answered below
SEEK HELP IMMEDIATELY! DO NOT WAIT AT HOME! … If you suspect a child has ingested water beads. Each case of water bead ingestion is unique and should be assessed by a medical professional. Water bead ingestion can be very dangerous as the beads expand from the water in our bodies. Since these accidents can happen so quickly, caregivers might not be aware that something is wrong.
Signs and symptoms your child has swallowed water beads include:
Additional symptoms we observed in Kipley:
Note: Ingestion is not the only risk water beads can pose to children…Your older child may also be harmed by water beads! Asphyxiation, accidental insertion into the nose or ear can occur, skin reactions, and exposure to an unknown and potentially hazardous level of acrylamide monomers. Remember that dosage matters! The data has shown in tested organisms that acrylamide is genotoxic, mutagenic, neurotoxic, a probable human carcinogen, and a reproductive toxin. The full long-term effects of hazardous acrylamide level exposure to children during sensitive periods of development are unknown!
Play is the occupation of childhood, and toys are the tools and materials of the trade. Aside from inevitable food exposure, children should be exposed to as little acrylamide from sources such as toys as possible.
Water beads pose imaging and diagnostic challenges in a variety of ways including but not limited too...
https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-021-02740-x
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213576620303456
https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-020-02168-9
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34651526/
https://radiopaedia.org/articles/cytotoxic-cerebral-oedema?lang=us
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e40a/f3ac23a7ebc56c6e17120ccace01b7764e46.pdf
https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/PHS/PHS.aspx?phsid=1113&toxid=236
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B0123694000000235
https://actascientific.com/ASCR/pdf/ASCR-02-0122.pdf
"Age restriction and parent observation are not an effective way to prevent these SAP ingestion from occurring, as nearly half of the reported incidents occurred in school-aged children, with 30% occurring while the children were at school. Thus far, studies have reported that toys such as SAP beads to cause harm to the intestines, the external auditory canal, and as in our case, the respiratory system. We suspect that if stuck in the larynx and enlarged after absorbing water, SAP beads may result in a catastrophic sequelae. For the above mentioned reasons, we propose recalling all brands of SAP beads from markets."
https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-020-02168-9
Please Sign Petition to protect children from water bead toys and guns on school campuses....
Report dangerous Products like water beads to the CPSC https://www.saferproducts.gov/
Our family is working to change policy and legislation so that healthcare professionals are required to call poison and report products linked to childhood injuries to the CPSC. We also want water beads to stop being marketed, advertised, and sold to children in stores and online. Educating others about the relevance of consumer product safety is a major part of what we do at Displaynotplay.com
More information coming soon...
Water beads are known by many different names. They have caused rashes, nasal cavity injuries, hearing loss, lung damage, seizures, brain injuries , major intestinal surgeries, asphyxiation, and death. Water beads are banned in other countries due to their threat to children. Kipley's story is a warning I hope you heed. Water beads should not be used for play.
In April 2017, Kipley's parents purchased water beads as a birthday gift for their 6-year-old daughter, Abigail. Their 10-month-old, Kipley, was not allowed to play with the beads. Kipley's parents did not know she had swallowed any water beads; they took her to the hospital because they thought she had the stomach flu. Doctors gave Kipley test after test and tried different medications to stop her vomiting, but Kipley was still unable to keep anything down. No one could figure out what was wrong, so her quick-thinking team of doctors decided surgery was Kipley’s best chance at survival. In July 2017, Kipley was rushed into emergency exploratory surgery where the doctor found water bead material had formed a mass in her small intestine. Water beads are not like traditional foreign bodies, they do not always reliably and effectively travel down the digestive tract. Kipley's parents took her to the doctor twice between April and July (once for a follow-up and once for a check-up), they kept a close eye on her, and took every precaution while their older daughter played with the beads, no one suspected that the water beads were gradually collecting inside of Kipley.
Even though water beads are marketed as non-toxic, the term non-toxic is shockingly unregulated in the United States. Data for all clinically treated acute, sub-acute, and chronic injuries, as well as disease or fatalities in children associated with potential chemical exposure from interactions with toy products, are not systematically reported, analyzed, and quantified. Calls to Poison Control, reports to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and medical literature case studies are submitted voluntarily. Furthermore, the chemical composition of toys is often not readily available to consumers at the point of purchase and physicians at the point of care. The term "non toxic" is misleading. There is NO guarantee that a product labeled "non-toxic" is actually toxin free.
The polymerization process used to create water beads is never 100%. In occupational and laboratory settings, gloves and protective equipment must be worn to avoid repeated contact with residual neurotoxin acrylamide monomers when handling polyacrylamide. Even through polyacrylamide is considered non-toxic, the polymer must be treated with the same caution as the monomer acrylamide. Due to Kipley's exposure to acrylamide she suffered a brain injury, toxic brain encephalopathy.
Manufacturers and retailers are not required to disclose the residual amount of acrylamide in their water bead products. Even though the majority of toys sold in the United States are made in China, most American law firms will not pursue Chinese manufacturers. Online retailers are shielded from liability for injuries caused by products sold by third-parties on their platforms. Presently, U.S. consumers injured by a Chinese-made product and unable to sue a responsible party in the U.S. will not be compensated for their injuries. In this regard, the American legal system has failed to adequately protect American consumers. (Glynn, 2012)
Regardless of the child's age, Water beads should not be used as a toy.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34116666/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17QvniCJpGA1PNrKjY4y6ZJeSkaQimDZW/view?usp=sharing
https://www.edvotek.com/site/pdf/Pre-cast%20Polyacrylamide%20Gels.pdf
https://www.ehs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/lab_safety_guideline_acrylamide.pdf
Display Not Play has a TikTok, GoFundMe, Facebook group and Facebook page… We are most active on Tik Tok and in our Facebook group. We would love for you to be apart of our community.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMRowLfWk/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/displaynotplay/
Marketing campaigns are persuasive by design, and well-intentioned professionals can fall victim to marketing claims like anyone else. Furthermore, most health care providers are not adequately trained to recognize environmentally-related risks or health problems in pregnant women, children, and adolescents. Children's Environmental Health is not standard in most medical and nursing school curricula, and medical and pediatric textbooks may only skim health topics and their relationship to environmental exposures. For this reason, the United States has 10 regional Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units (PEHSUs) and poison control centers.
Many people and healthcare professionals know about poison control centers, but have never heard of the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units (PEHSUs). Supported by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), PEHSUs are a national network of experts in the prevention, diagnosis, management, and treatment of health issues that arise from environmental exposures from preconception through adolescence. Your personal healthcare professional may be very interested in knowing that they can consult with environmental pediatric professionals at these units. Your interest in this topic may encourage more and more healthcare providers to become proficient in the topic.
No! There is NO guarantee that a product labeled "non-toxic" is actually not toxic. When many people see a product labeled non-toxic, they assume that it has been tested and found free of toxic chemicals. They believe the product has a limited ability to cause harm. Many parents choose products labeled non-toxic under the assumption that they are making the smart, safe choice for their child. Most often the chemical content of toys is not readily available to consumers at the point of purchase, and physicians at point of care. Absent strict specifications about chemical content, there also may be batch to batch variation in chemical mixtures used for toys. Additionally, the chemicals used in toys may change rapidly in response to market forces, or may be protected as proprietary information. The chemicals used in toys made by smaller manufacturers, may be less well controlled and/or undocumented. Even if chemical content is consistent and recorded, toxicological information about chemicals used in toys may not be complete. Unfortunately, the belief that non-toxic equals safe causes unintentional harm. Parents, therapists, and even physicians would be surprised to know that the term non-toxic is shockingly unregulated.
The Federal Hazardous Substance Act give the Consumer Product Safety Commission authority to regulate or ban hazardous substances and toys or other articles intended for use by children, under certain circumstances to protect the public. Unfortunately the Consumer Product Safety Commission guidelines are written in confusing language. It is important for consumers and clinicians to know the term "non-toxic" is not defined by the regulation, the decision to characterize a product as non-toxic rests with the manufacturer. The Federal Hazardous Substance Act does not define the terms "non-toxic" or "non-hazardous"; manufactures are not required to preform toxicity tests; The FHSA does not require pre-market approval for products; the CPSC can not require any specific toxicity tests; and manufactures are not required to provide ingredients to the CPSC.
The view that non-toxic equals safe needs to change for the health, safety, and well-being of children. Everyone needs to understand that non-toxic equals an open question, not case closed.
https://www.forceofnatureclean.com/non-toxic-vs-toxin-free-what-do-these-terms-even-mean/
https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/pdfs/blk_pdf_chronichazardguidelines.pdf
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1500.3
https://wastefreephd.com/2018/11/18/are-natural-non-toxic-chemical-free-cleaners-bogus/
Historically in the US, product recalls are mainly voluntary. Congress set up the CPSC in the 1970s to work with industry rather than regulate it. The CPSC is unfortunately understaffed and under-resourced. CPSC employees are tasked with managing trillions of dollars of products. There are not enough investigators to adequately protect consumers.
Online sellers use several techniques allowed by major online retailers to escape accountability and regulatory oversight for injuries caused by their products. For example, after an injury occurs and sellers are notified, they often delete the original listing and repost the product under a different name. Sellers can also flood listings with fake positive reviews burying reviews that warn of danger. This type of behavior makes it more difficult for consumers, regulators, and researchers to see the complete picture of what harm a class of products is causing.
Currently, water beads are known around the world by different names, including but not limited too: hydrogels, polyacrylamide beads, PAM, super absorbent polymer balls, fairy orbs, orbeez refills, dinosaur eggs, rainbow balls, water balz, and dozens of other aliases. The precautionary principle is not consistently followed. Nowadays, unless a manufacturer issues a voluntary recall, several deaths occur before some products are removed from the market.
A recent study by Etayankara Muralidharan and colleagues found that for defective products that posed severe hazards, the time to recall was longer for design-related recalls and toy companies that had issued previous recalls took longer to recall toys that posed more severe hazards than those with less serious problems. For the toy industry, the conflict between public safety and business profits is particularly problematic.
https://www.reviewthis.com/mandatory-recall-magnet-sets/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0148296321007621?via%3Dihub
No.
"Presently, U.S. consumers who have been injured by a Chinese-made
product and are unable to bring suit against a responsible party in the United States will not be compensated for their injury. In this regard, the U.S. legal system has failed to provide adequate protection for U.S. consumers Manufacturers and retailers are not required to disclose the residual amount of acrylamide their toy products contain." Major online retailers are in most states shielded from liability through section 230 even though their algorithms influence what products are promoted on their sites. And fulfillment centers are not classified as distribution centers or assemblers, so they are also protected from liability lawsuits. There is no one to sue.
https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/eilr/vol26/iss1/12/
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/products_liability
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/28/AR2007072800733.html
On social media, the water bead challenge/ orbeez challenge is associated with gel blasters, orbeez guns, water bead guns, and gel blasters. There is currently a misguided belief that guns are a harmless toy, however this idea is incorrect and dangerous. Currently, there is a misguided notion the guns are a harmless toy, but this assumption is inaccurate harmful. These guns have the ability to cause blunt ocular trauma with the potential for permanent sequelae which may necessitate surgical intervention and, depending on the injuries sustained, vision loss may be irreversible
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6557336/
The use of these gel blasters have played a role in the deaths of two individuals an 18 year old and an 8 year old. Additionally, according to news reports, teenagers around the country have been arrested for partaking in the orbeez challenge and inflicting injury to persons and property.
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/apr/12/water-bead-gun-turns-deadly-leaves-8-year-old/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/22/nyregion/nyc-officer-shooting-toy-gun.html
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/video/1046404
https://newsdaytonabeach.com/stories/teen-charged-after-shooting-girl-with-water-bead-gun,10788
Mayors in New York and Kentucky have banned water bead guns due to the nuance and harm they have caused.
https://foxlexington.com/news/kentucky/kentucky-mayor-bans-public-use-of-tiktok-famous-orbeez-gun/
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Acrylamide
Palus, K., Bulc, M., & Całka, J. (2020). Effect of Acrylamide Supplementation on the Population of Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide (VIP)-Like Immunoreactive Neurons in the Porcine Small Intestine. International journal of molecular sciences, 21(24), 9691. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21249691
Palus, K., & Całka, J. (2019). Influence of Acrylamide Administration on the Neurochemical Characteristics of Enteric Nervous System (ENS) Neurons in the Porcine Duodenum. International journal of molecular sciences, 21(1), 15. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21010015
Herath, M., Hosie, S., Bornstein, J. C., Franks, A. E., & Hill-Yardin, E. L. (2020, May 28). The role of the gastrointestinal mucus system in intestinal homeostasis: Implications for neurological disorders. Frontiers. Retrieved January 25, 2022, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2020.00248/full
Glynn, S. (2012). Toxic toys and dangerous drywall: Holding foreign manufacturers liable for defective products--the fund concept. Emory Law Scholarly Commons. Retrieved January 24, 2022, from https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/eilr/vol26/iss1/12/
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Kipley’s Toxic Encephalopathy brain injury has impacted the trajectory of her life. Kipley started therapy a few months after her injury and continues to be in therapy now 5 years later.
Her speech, verbal memory, social ability (owing to communication difficulties), and personality have all been impacted. She has tremors, takes seizure medication, has difficulty with coordination, sleeping, vision issues, and faces other difficulties the full effects of which we will not know until she is an adult. Her automatic, peripheral, and central nervous system were all impacted by the poisoning.
We value Kipley’s privacy and do not want her deficits to be taken advantage of or used to bully her as she gets older. This is why we are selective in what we share about her. We balance respecting Kipley’s person-hood and autonomy while acknowledging the reality that clinicians and parents need information on how to manage water bead injuries and navigate life afterwards.
For a long time our family was denied the dignity of being able to tell the full story of Kipley’s tragedy. We tried to provide an update to Kipley's original news story, we also approached a number of news agencies and parenting outlets tasked with protecting children, but they viewed Kipley’s story as unimportant due to our inability to sue. They also failed to recognize the need to contact a board certified occupational medicine physician who could clarify the specifics of Kipley's situation by reviewing her medical records and provide them with research to confirm what happened to her. So much harm could have been prevented in the five years that have passed since Kipley’s injury. This is one of the reasons our family started the nonprofit. We believe parents and clinicians deserve access to proper feedback mechanisms, information that is accurate, up to date, and fully tells the story of those impacted by water beads and other dangerous consumer products.
Copyright © 2021 Display not Play - All Rights Reserved. Legal disclaimer: Media posted on our social media channels and/or our website is intended for a general overview and discussion of the subjects dealt with. if in an emergency situation seek help from highly qualified medical professionals. We disclaim all liability in respect to actions taken or not taken based on any or all the contents of this site to the fullest extent permitted by law.
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