Washington, DC - On May 22, the United States Consumer Product Commission, along with a Columbus, OH importer of educational products declared a voluntary recall of various types of magnets widely used in schools' science classes.

About 87,000 various magnets manufactured in India and imported and sold throughout the United States by American Scientific LLC are believed to be in violation of the Consumer Product Safety Commission's lead standard, therefore posing a health hazard to children. To date, American Scientific LLC has received no reports of injury or incident resulting from the recalled magnets. Teachers, school officers and administration staff should take note and check if magnets used in science classrooms were purchased from American Scientific and possibly included in the recall.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is declaring that the recalled magnets should no longer be used. Because of this statement, it is safe to assume that these magnets should be removed from classrooms. The recalled products include horseshoe magnets, rectangular bar magnets and U-shaped magnets and contain red and/or blue paint on the surface. As aforementioned, they were chiefly sold to schools for classroom use. The magnets were distributed nationwide through independent distributors from October of 2006 through February of 2008 and retailed for roughly between $1 and $4. The item numbers of all magnets included in this recall are listed in the table below. (The table was taken directly from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Web site).



Individual consumers or schools who have purchased the recalled magnets are advised to discontinue use immediately. Consumers should contact American Scientific LLC for instructions on how to receive free replacement product.

Columbus, OH based American Scientific LLC claims to offer wholesale educational products at manufacturer's products. (AMERICAN-SCIENTIFIC.COM) They distribute scientific educational products such as microscopes, bioplasts, thermometers and various lab supplies.