copied from a natural parenting site i frequent...

Ok, I'm forwarding this to everyone so they don't make the same mistake. These burns were caused by a Magic Eraser sponge. The mom in this case let her kids erase their crayon marks off the walls and never even thought the sponges would have this kind of chemical in them that would cause this kind of burn or even hurt them. Learn from her mistake. Pass this along to anyone who has kids or grandchildren.

The photo is of Kolby - 24 hours after being burned by a Magic Eraser sponge. It was much worse the day before.

Here is the email we received -
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, wond ering 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 warning 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 no body 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 wate r 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 ti ssue 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.

They sent us home with more Aloe Vera gel, Polysporin antibiotic cream, and some other numbing creams. By the time we got home, my son was crying again. I tried applying some of the creams but he cried out in pain. Water seemed to be what worked the best.

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.


(i couldn't attach the pics but they were AWFUL! poor little rotter.)

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Coco -- I'm going to tell everyone I know who cleans a lot -- unlike myself, I just use regular sponges. Cleaning is a dirty word to me.

This reminds me of an article and photos I saw of a girl, who wore those flip-flops with the pineapple stencil on the bottom from China, who got severe chemical burns on her feet that lasted for weeks.

yikes!

hey, i posted this on another site and people linked to urban legend and such saing it was a hoax but i got it from a site where a regular poster (who i know is real, she lives in my neighbourhood) had the same thing happen to her daughter. really bad, oozy, open, weeping chemmical burn on her arm that took a month to finally go away.
so if you get told it's not true you can say that you know it is!

Coco,

Thank you very much for telling us about it. Although I'm in Singapore and I haven't heard of this Magic Eraser before, I'll be more cautious about using these stuff next time.

All the Best,
Wong

actually its not an urban myth ... the problem is thru the email process , the story got changed and altered ... and some parts were not right anymore

here is the original story at this link [kerflop.com]

Abrasion and a Chemical Burn (Original Entry)
November 2, 2006
If you arrived here through a web search or by following a link, I recommend you start here.

Some of you who are marked as friends or family on my flickr account have already seen this, but as Jill pointed out, I probably need to share it just for the sake of public awareness.

I hate writing this and I hate sharing it as there is a lot of guilt wrapped up in it, but here goes.


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 purchased a package of Magic Erasers ages ago when they first came out. 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 warning 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. (Update: the products are abrasive and his wounds today look more like skinned knees than burns. But the Poison Control center confirms that the alkaline nature of the products does indeed cause a chemical burn in addition to scraping the skin.)

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. (Update: this irrigation of cool or tepid water is absolutely essential. There is some argument going around the internet that the products are only abrasive. They aren’t, the alkaline nature of the sponges also burns the skin - so imagine a burn and a bad scrape all in the same spot. Not pleasant. The irrigation stops the burning by neutralizing the alkaline. Some have suggested irrigating with plain household vinegar as well.)

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.

They sent us home with more Aloe Vera gel, Polysporin antibiotic cream, and some other numbing burn creams. By the time we got home, my son was crying again. I tried applying some of the creams but he cried out in pain. Water seemed to be what worked the best.

After a rough night, I took the above photo in the morning. He was swollen and wouldn’t move his lips very much to avoid moving the skin on his taut cheeks. I was fighting back the tears, and I said, “Oh honey, I wish I could take it away from you. I wish I could take it off your face and put it on mine.” He was so shocked, he started to tear up a little and said, “Mom, no. You don’t want this on your face, it hurts so much. You would be hurting. Last night was terrible, I couldn’t sleep, and you wouldn’t be able to sleep either.” It just broke my heart into five trillion pieces - as much as he is hurting, he wouldn’t want me to be hurting in his place.

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, and this morning he went back to Pre-School with Polysporin rubbed all over his face. He announced to the class, “I brought my face for Show and Tell!”

I still feel so badly, I’m supposed to protect my son, yet I stupidly thought these “Magic” products were harmless.

I have called both Mr. Clean and Scotchbrite (3M). Mr. Clean tells me their products now have a warning label that state they should not be used on skin and can cause abrasions. I could not get through to 3M so I left messages and e-mailed the story through the form on their website.

I just received a response:

Dear Ms. Kerflop,

Thank you for taking time to contact 3M Home Care Division. Feedback from our customers is an integral part of our business and we encourage it.
Please know that we have forwarded your message to our marketing and lab departments.

We would appreciate the opportunity to discuss the performance of our product with you, as we would not expect it to behave as you have described. Please call us at your earliest convenience, toll free at 1-800-846-8887, so that I might assist you further and bring this matter to a resolution that is agreeable for you.

Sincerely,

Tina
3M Home Care Division
Note: I have absolutely no intention of suing the company whatsoever. My son is going to be fine. I would simply like the companies to post appropriate warnings on their products.

Update 11/8/06: My son’s injury has healed, from what I understand, this is a pretty speedy recovery so we’re thankful for that. Abrasions combined with a chemical burn make for some strange wounds. The scabs seemed to form on top of thin, sunburn like skin peels, flaking off as the skin healed underneath. I have never seen anything quite like it - thin flakes of skin just like a sunburn with moist baby skin underneath and signs of those little early blisters we saw prior to irrigating his face with water, yet still bumpy on top like a skinned knee scab.

The skin underneath is new and pink and it doesn’t look like there will be any scarring.

I responded to the e-mail from Tina above with:

I just want to urge you to please place appropriate warnings on your products.

Here is my full story. [kerflop.com]

Thank you,

Ms. Kerflop
She responded:

Dear Ms. Kerflop,

Thank you for contacting 3M regarding the Scotch-Brite(TM) Easy Erasing
Pads.

The product does not innately contain any chemicals or cleaning agents.
When the product is used in accordance with recommended uses, the product
does not pose any health threat.

We do not recommend using the product on skin. The product has abrasive
properties and can cause the skin to become irritated.

We have attached the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for your review.

Please know that we have forwarded your comments to our marketing and
technical departments for review.

If we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Best Regards,

Tina
3M Home Care Division
1-800-846-8887
www.scotchbrite.com
I responded:

Tina,

The poison control states that the product has an 8 - 10 pH which can cause a “base” or alkaline burn. My son had abrasions on his face as well as blistering burns that were helped exponentially by irrigating the skin with water for twenty minutes. Do not try to tell me it didn’t burn his skin. I took pictures every single day.

Since most parents do not know how to access a Material Safety Data sheet, I strongly recommend you place warnings on the packaging itself since my package only states “do not ingest”, my son knew not to eat it, and had used the pad many times without incident.

As a result of my entry on my weblog which I sent you earlier, I have received 100 comments and even more e-mail from mothers who had no idea the product could be harmful for their child. Some mothers even used the magic erasers and Easy Erasing pads on their children to remove magic marker thinking it was a safe product due to the lack of warnings or even a list of ingredients. As stated in my post on my website, Magic Eraser told me they are now putting warnings on their packaging. I urge your company to do the same. The way these products are marketed without a list of ingredients or sufficient warnings have fooled many, many individuals into thinking they are harmless and cannot hurt the skin.

I have been advised to sue, I have no plans to do so, I only want to save other children from this potential injury. I have filed a report with the [www.cpsc.gov] and my story has been picked up by several radio stations. I would love to update my story with an announcement from your company which states you will be placing warnings on your packaging.

The only warning on the package said not to ingest, which he did not. The sponge feels soft to the touch, it is not clear that the product is abrasive and potentially harmful. Many have told me the product has injured their hands. Adequate warnings need to be placed on the packaging immediately.

Ms. Kerflop
I have not received a response to date.

Let me say once again, that I myself feel very foolish for trusting nondescript, warning-less packaging, believing the eraser type sponges were only mildly abrasive and could not hurt the skin. I didn’t even think they contained soap. While the majority of the response to this entry has been positive, I have had a small handful of critics who have felt the need to post comments, send e-mail, and post entries on their own websites criticizing me for my poor judgment call. To them I’d like to say, I’d be happy to engage in a conversation if only you would use a real e-mail address and try not to be so inflammatory. Also, really, you don’t need to tell me. I accept full responsibility. I shouldn’t have trusted the packaging. I should have been more careful. I should have used my head. Save your righteous indignation, it’s okay. I already know that you’re a lot smarter than me and wouldn’t have been so incredibly stupid. But for the rest of the bad mothers out there that I helped by posting this, you’re welcome. And thanks for your lovely notes of support.

For a the rest of the story, visit this page. [kerflop.com]

Abrasion and a Chemical Burn (Perhaps)
November 2, 2006

Hi there. I have a lot of archived entries here at my little home on the web, but this particular page seems to get an awful lot of hits, even though the incident first featured here happened back in October of 2006.

Important! I would ask, please, if you arrived here after searching the internet upon receiving an email forward with photos of my son’s face and my story pasted into it, PLEASE, delete the email. Do NOT forward it on. You may send the link to this page to your friends and family if you would like to warn others, but please, the photo of my son and my story are my copyrighted material, and I have NOT granted permission to anyone to use the information. Given the nature of e-mail forwards, often information is added, changed, or misused. The e-mail that is circulating now contains someone else’s story about her son Kolby and a photo of his injured arms. Kolby is not my son, and the photo of the child’s injured arms is NOT MY CHILD. If you have already forwarded the message on, please email your friends and family the link to this page and ask them to delete the message.

Also, if you have found excerpts of my story and my photos posted on public forums, I would ask that you point the moderator to this web page and ask them to remove my copyrighted material. Posting a link to my story is perfectly fine.

Thank you for your help in this matter.
When I first posted about my young son’s run in with a Scotchbrite Easy Erasing pad (similar to Magic Eraser), I received a lot of positive feedback from parents grateful for the information who had also allowed their children to help out around the house with these products. I also got a good amount of criticism from strangers on the internet who felt a strong desire to castigate me personally. Though the supportive e-mails and comments far out-weighed the negative, I got tired of dealing with it and made the story private for a while, replacing it, and its handful of update entries with a shorter summary of the incident here instead. Later, after the hullaballoo seemed to have blown over, I brought the original story and its follow ups back for reference sake.

Now that part of the original story has been featured at the Snopes website (update, and now Urban Legends), I’m getting a bunch of new e-mail on the subject. Some nice, some not so nice. I thought I’d try to spruce things up a bit here, and organize all my entries so it’s a bit easier to get through should all of this interest you.

A word to the wise before you dive in:

If, after reading or skimming through my story, or perhaps reading a summary of it elsewhere on the web, you jump to the conclusions that I am a) a terrible mother, b) a stupid person, c) blaming the 3M company for something I should have had common sense over, or d) am in need of hearing about the wonderful natural products you sell through a multi-level marketing company pause for just a moment before you click that contact button.

Consider first that this incident happened on Halloween of 2006. Quite a long time ago. But thanks to the e-mail forwards that refuse to die, the story lives on.

Scotchbrite sent a lovely package with a note in January of 2007 “We have addressed the issue and are taking steps to change the packaging to warn other consumers of the potential reaction to using the product on the skin.” They go on to offer “sincere apologies for the reaction [my] son experienced.”

My son is all better. His skin healed wonderfully and there are no noticeable scars. The surprisingly frequent e-mails instructing me to get my son to a Shriner’s hospital seem well intentioned, but really, very unnecessary. He’s fine.

Next, please note that I take responsibility for my lack of foresight. It was foolish to believe that a product that can scrub permanent marker from walls would be harmless. At the time, I thought without a warning or a list of ingredients, perhaps the soft white sponge worked similarly to microfiber towels. Again. I know. Not my brightest parenting moment.

I was not ever considering a law suit nor was I ever trying to blame the company (in the sense that they owed me something) for what happened. My motivation in sharing the story was always to help notify other parents that the Magic Eraser and Easy Erasing Pad products were not harmless, and to notify the company and urge them to use a warning or somehow clarify that their product could cause injury to the skin. I only ever wanted to help, and have received countless e-mails from “bad” mothers and fathers everywhere thanking me for doing so.

Now, if you continue to think me stupid or a terrible mother, and desperately feel the need to tell me about it, fine. Be my guest. I’m sure your indignant e-mail will give my friends and I a few chuckles - that is, if I receive your hateful missive at all, my new contact form is pretty talented at corralling such messages into the black void where junk mail and all its cousins go to die.

Finally, I live in the heart of Melaleuca country. Please don’t contact me offering to sell me your natural products. I’m not interested, but good luck with your business.

Now then! The stuff you all came here for.

First, we have the summary I put up after making the original story private for a while, this page includes the links to the MSDS sheets I am so frequently e-mailed. Note to the world: I have them.
Then, we have the Original Chemical Burn entry.
A bit of humor to lighten things up a bit.
Here is the first update.
And here is what I thought was the final update.
But that wasn’t the final update. After nearly a year, the daily e-mail I receive on the subject had really started to drive me crazy. So I posted this rant and asked kind readers everywhere to please refrain from e-mailing me about the subject.
Hungry for more? You can always go read the lovely bit of sunshine on this old metafilter thread. That should quell your desire to send me an e-mail asking me if I’d hand my child a bottle of bleach. I mean, come on, if I’m going to do that, I uncap it and stick a straw in it first.

Ha ha! Kidding! Don’t you admire my ability to make jokes through all of this? Not at all? Not even a little tiny bit? Hello? Is this thing on?

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist