A bipartisan bill has been introduced in the Senate in order to ban the sale of water beads marketed as children’s toys after concerns about the product's dangers were raised.
The bill, known as “Esther’s Law,” is named after Esther Jo Bethard, a 10-month-old who passed away after swallowing a water bead, which can absorb liquid and expand inside the body.
Introduced by Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wisc.) and Bob Casey (Penn.) and Republican Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the bill aims to prohibit the sale of water beads intended for children or advertised as such
These small, colorful balls are sometimes sold as toys or in craft kits. They are made of superabsorbent polymers and can swell up to 100 times their original size when they come into contact with water.
Although they can be used as sensory toys for kids, there have been numerous warnings about children swallowing the beads.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), there were an estimated 7,800 cases of injuries related to water beads treated in emergency departments from 2016 to 2022, along with at least one fatality.
Baldwin stated that parents purchase these products as toys or educational materials believing they are safe, but unfortunately, “that is just not the case.”
“We need to take more action to prevent children from ingesting these harmful products and provide parents with the assurance that the toys they purchase are safe,” commented Baldwin in a statement. “I am honored to present this legislation in memory of Esther to ensure that no parent experiences the agony of losing their child due to companies being allowed to market water beads as toys.”
Esther’s mother, Taylor Bethard, mentioned that families should not have to endure the loss of a child because of a toy. She commended the legislation and expressed that “families deserve better.”
In December, major retailers like Target, Walmart, and Amazon halted the sale of water beads. EBay started including leaflets to advise its sellers against listing water beads as toys, and Etsy has banned the sale of the beads completely. The legislation aims to instruct the CPSC to prohibit water beads, consider regulations on the colors of similar products with ingestion risks to reduce their appeal to children, and require the CPSC to place warning labels on the packaging.
