One toy that has blown up over the past few years is facing some backlash due to safety issues.
Three of the largest retailers in the U.S. have announced they will stop selling one beloved children’s’ toy.
Amazon, Target and Walmart are all on board with the change amid growing pressure in recent years to remove the product.
This news comes following reports of injuries and deaths of children who have swallowed this toy or placed them in their noses or ears.
“At Target, our top priority is the safety of our guests,” a Target spokesperson told Good Morning America following the move.
A Walmart spokesperson echoed the same sentiment, saying, “The safety of our customers will always be a top priority.”
For years, parents have been warning about the dangers of this toy, while the Consumer Product Safety Commission has published reports of injuries in babies and children.
In September, Wisconsin mother Taylor Bethard spoke to Philadelphia ABC affiliate station WPVI about her 10-month-old daughter Esther’s death following the ingestion of the toy.
Bethard said she wanted “to ensure that no other family has to experience what [they] experienced.”
“It’s a miserable, miserable feeling to lose your child. No parent should ever have to go through that,” she continued.
“And if we can just save a few kids by sharing, then it’s worth it for us to share,” Bethard said.
The toy in question? Water beads.
While they look small and harmless, the small balls–made of polymers–can be very hazardous.
When they are exposed to liquids, they can “expand to the size of a tennis ball,” about 150 to 1,500 times their original size, according to the National Capital Poison Center.
About 52,000 of Buffalo Games’ Chuckle & Roar Ultimate Water Beads Activity Kits, a water bead toy, were recalled back in September.
At the time, the toy company told ABC News they take “customer safety very seriously.”
“Before selling the Ultimate Water Beads Kit, as we do with every product, Buffalo Games followed CPSC regulations and had the product tested to Children’s Product Safety standards by an independent CPSC approved lab,” the Buffalo, New York-based company said in a statement.
“The product passed the tests dictated by the standards, including the ASTM standards for expanding materials,” the statement continued. “The product is graded for Ages 4+, and carries a choking hazard warning on package.”
Following the recent move toward safety, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed to Good Morning America that they have updated their water beads policy for third-party sellers and are committed to checking store listings for water bead products.
“In the interest of safety, Amazon will no longer allow the sale of water beads that are marketed to children, including as toys, art supplies or for sensory play,” the statement read.
It continued, “We work hard to ensure the products offered in our store are safe, and we have teams dedicated to developing and updating our policies, evaluating listings, and continuously monitoring our store to prevent unsafe and noncompliant products from being listed.”
Target, which previously sold the Buffalo Games children’s water bead kit that was recalled in September, also said it would halt the sale of water beads in stores and online for kids 12 and under.
Regarding Walmart’s decision to do the same, they said in a statement: “We decided to voluntarily stop selling expanding water bead toy and craft items marketed to young children and have already taken steps to remove them from our stores and online.”
Water beads are often marketed as sensory toys and toys for children with developmental disorders.
Unfortunately, the fact that they can grow so much larger after coming in contact with water has proven dangerous.
Because they can grow inside the body once ingested, these toys pose immense health risks to young children, according to experts.
To make matters worse, because they’re mostly made up of water, typical X-rays often do not pick them up.
In a safety alert in September, the CPSC reported that these beads “can cause severe discomfort, vomiting, dehydration, intestinal blockages and life-threatening injuries” and may require surgery to remove.
US Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey introduced legislation aimed at instating a national ban on beads marketed to kids last month.
“They are specifically marketed to kids. In a single small package you can have 25, 50, or even 75 thousand of these beads and it just takes one to cause harm to a child,” Pallone said in a November news conference.
“They are not labeled as dangerous to small children, there’s no warning, and they’re not hard to get,” he warned.