For those who use Magic Erasers
11-24-2007, 12:02 PM
#1
Melting Slicks
Thread Starter
For those who use Magic Erasers
I know a lot of C6 people use the Magic Eraser for cleaning so I am posting here so you know what can happen if a child gets a hold of one.This is an email I recieved but thought it just might save some child a lot of agony.I is definately worth passing around.
Here is the mother's email.
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 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 war ning 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.
After a rough night, I took the above photo in the morning. He was swollen and wouldn't move his lips very much. The skin on his cheeks was taut.
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.
If you are a parent or grandparent, this post is meant to save your loved ones from the horror these parents went through. Please share it with other parents, grandparents, babysitters, aunts and uncles ~ anyone you know who spends time with kids.
Here is the mother's email.
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 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 war ning 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.
After a rough night, I took the above photo in the morning. He was swollen and wouldn't move his lips very much. The skin on his cheeks was taut.
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.
If you are a parent or grandparent, this post is meant to save your loved ones from the horror these parents went through. Please share it with other parents, grandparents, babysitters, aunts and uncles ~ anyone you know who spends time with kids.
11-24-2007, 01:05 PM
#3
Team Owner
However, the box of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers that I have has a warning to keep out of the reach of children.
But the point of the post is well taken. We need to look again at anything we're using to detail our cars and see if it's labeled. Probably a good idea to keep it (them) out of the reach of children anyway.
11-24-2007, 01:52 PM
#4
Melting Slicks
If I read it right, the child was using the Magic Erasers to clean magic marker off of his own face, or was he just rubbing on it on there? I'll read the box when I get home, but if it say's keep away from children, keep it away from the children 
11-24-2007, 02:51 PM
#5
Racer
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I searched for Magic Eraser Burns on line and got nothing that supports them causing a chemical burn. It could also be abrasions, not a burn. I don't have a package to look at, but I thought they were non-toxic the Mayo Clinic website said they are non-toxic and there is no medical proof they cause burns.
11-24-2007, 03:20 PM
#8
Le Mans Master
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If you check out snopes you will find some info on this. Bottom line is no chemicals that would cause a chemical burn are used in them and they are considered non-toxic.
11-24-2007, 03:26 PM
#10
Team Owner
The original post came from this item on the web a year ago.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/librar...raser-burn.htm
If you look up Scotch brite Easy Eraser Burns, the above post appears.
I have to agree with at least one of those who posted above: why would anyone let a child use household cleaning items or car detail items?
Note the following comments at the bottom of that web article.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/librar...raser-burn.htm
If you look up Scotch brite Easy Eraser Burns, the above post appears.
I have to agree with at least one of those who posted above: why would anyone let a child use household cleaning items or car detail items?
Note the following comments at the bottom of that web article.
Comments: The above text -- the majority of it, at any rate -- originated as a November 2, 2006 blog posting on Kerflop.com, written by a businesswoman and mother of three named Jessica. Based a harrowing experience involving her own five-year-old son, she sought to warn other parents of the potential hazard posed to children by the unsupervised use of Scotchbrite Easy Erasing Pads and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. We have no reason to doubt the honesty or sincerity of her effort.
There are two points at issue, however. One has to do with unauthorized additions to the text, including an opening paragraph referring to a different child altogether and an attached photo which never appeared in the original article; the other pertains to the question of whether or not the injuries suffered by Jessica's son were actually "chemical burns."
Who is Kolby?
As Jessica herself noted in a follow-up blog posting, it is in the nature of forwarded emails that "information is added, changed, or misused" by other parties at will. In this case a preface was added -- signed by someone named Karlee -- lamenting the injuries sustained by her son Kolby while playing with a Magic Eraser sponge. We have no way of knowing who these people are, let alone whether a child named Kolby actually suffered injuries similar to those of Jessica's son (whose name is Jacob).
Likewise, we have no information on the origin of the photo showing a child with burns or abrasions on his arms. According to Jessica, whom I contacted via email, the picture is not of her son -- who had facial injuries -- nor does she have any idea where it came from.
Given these dubious addenda, not to mention the fact that her original posting is copyrighted, Jessica requests that recipients of the message simply delete it and point interested parties to her Website instead of passing the spurious email along.
Chemical burn or abrasion?
As Jessica herself admits in later postings, it is by no means an established fact that her son's injuries were chemical burns. The product safety specs for Scotchbrite Magic Erasing Pads (MSDS) and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers (MSDS) list no soaps, solvents, or other chemical ingredients of any kind. The pH factor of Magic Erasers (and presumably Scotchbrite Pads) falls between 8 and 10 -- alkaline enough, according to a poison control center consulted by Jessica, to cause a "base chemical burn." And they ought to know. But it bears pointing out that even a pH of 10 to 12 is comparatively mild on the alkalinity scale. Baking soda has a pH of 9, for example, Milk of Magnesia has a pH of 10, and soapy water has a pH of 12 (see pH scale).
Conceivably, a patch of skin -- especially the sensitive skin of a child -- could be made more susceptible to irritation by a weak alkali if it is mildly abraded by, say, the melamine foam surface of an Easy Erasing Pad. With vigorous enough rubbing, on the other hand, perhaps the material itself is capable of causing injuries such as those shown in the photograph. It is also possible that an allergic reaction was involved.
Product warnings updated
In any case, we oughtn't to assume the accuracy of the title of this message, "Chemical Burns to Children," nor any statements in the body of the text implying the same, because it has not been established that chemicals played any role at all.
Can children harm themselves by misusing these products? The answer is clearly yes, and despite the misadventures of her blog posting (not to mention the rancor with which it was received by some), we have Jessica to thank for the manufacturers' decision to amend their product labels to include warnings against rubbing them on the skin and allowing their unsupervised use by children.
There are two points at issue, however. One has to do with unauthorized additions to the text, including an opening paragraph referring to a different child altogether and an attached photo which never appeared in the original article; the other pertains to the question of whether or not the injuries suffered by Jessica's son were actually "chemical burns."
Who is Kolby?
As Jessica herself noted in a follow-up blog posting, it is in the nature of forwarded emails that "information is added, changed, or misused" by other parties at will. In this case a preface was added -- signed by someone named Karlee -- lamenting the injuries sustained by her son Kolby while playing with a Magic Eraser sponge. We have no way of knowing who these people are, let alone whether a child named Kolby actually suffered injuries similar to those of Jessica's son (whose name is Jacob).
Likewise, we have no information on the origin of the photo showing a child with burns or abrasions on his arms. According to Jessica, whom I contacted via email, the picture is not of her son -- who had facial injuries -- nor does she have any idea where it came from.
Given these dubious addenda, not to mention the fact that her original posting is copyrighted, Jessica requests that recipients of the message simply delete it and point interested parties to her Website instead of passing the spurious email along.
Chemical burn or abrasion?
As Jessica herself admits in later postings, it is by no means an established fact that her son's injuries were chemical burns. The product safety specs for Scotchbrite Magic Erasing Pads (MSDS) and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers (MSDS) list no soaps, solvents, or other chemical ingredients of any kind. The pH factor of Magic Erasers (and presumably Scotchbrite Pads) falls between 8 and 10 -- alkaline enough, according to a poison control center consulted by Jessica, to cause a "base chemical burn." And they ought to know. But it bears pointing out that even a pH of 10 to 12 is comparatively mild on the alkalinity scale. Baking soda has a pH of 9, for example, Milk of Magnesia has a pH of 10, and soapy water has a pH of 12 (see pH scale).
Conceivably, a patch of skin -- especially the sensitive skin of a child -- could be made more susceptible to irritation by a weak alkali if it is mildly abraded by, say, the melamine foam surface of an Easy Erasing Pad. With vigorous enough rubbing, on the other hand, perhaps the material itself is capable of causing injuries such as those shown in the photograph. It is also possible that an allergic reaction was involved.
Product warnings updated
In any case, we oughtn't to assume the accuracy of the title of this message, "Chemical Burns to Children," nor any statements in the body of the text implying the same, because it has not been established that chemicals played any role at all.
Can children harm themselves by misusing these products? The answer is clearly yes, and despite the misadventures of her blog posting (not to mention the rancor with which it was received by some), we have Jessica to thank for the manufacturers' decision to amend their product labels to include warnings against rubbing them on the skin and allowing their unsupervised use by children.
11-24-2007, 03:36 PM
#11
Le Mans Master
