KEY POINTS:
A popular craft toy has been withdrawn because two preschool children needed hospital treatment after swallowing toxic beads from it.
The beads contain a chemical that when swallowed can produce the chemical GHB, a liquid sedative, in the body.
One child was unconscious on arrival at the Starship
children's hospital after swallowing the beads.
Ministry of Consumer Affairs spokesman Martin Rushton said last night that the importer of the Bindeez beads sets had agreed to stop supplying them. Ministry officials were working with companies in the supply chain to instigate a voluntary recall.
Mr Rushton said the ministry had acted immediately after learning from Australian counterparts of a New South Wales state ban on the award-winning children's craft toy, which consists of hundreds of the beads.
There, a 2-year-old boy and a girl aged 10 have been hospitalised in a serious condition in the past 10 days after swallowing the beads.
Australian authorities have urged parents to keep the beads out of children's reach.
In Auckland, the clinical director of Starship's emergency department, Dr Richard Aickin, said two pre-schoolers had been brought to the hospital within the past month after swallowing the beads.
Both had recovered.
Dr Aickin said the two cases were brought to his attention yesterday after the publicity in Australia.
"The beads should be withdrawn from sale," he said.
Made in Hong Kong, the toy's beads contain a chemical which can metabolise in the body into gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, also known as fantasy or GBH - for grievous bodily harm.
When the beads are lightly sprayed with water they can be stuck together to form patterns and pictures.
Bindeez beads won the Toy of the Year award at this year's Melbourne Toy and Hobby Fair.
In New Zealand, the Ministry of Health says one death has been attributed to taking fantasy, which was banned in 2002.
Fantasy depresses the central nervous system, and can in small doses have a relaxant effect, reduce inhibitions and cause short-term amnesia.
Higher doses lead to general anaesthesia, can stop breathing, reduce heart output and produce seizure-like activity and coma.
One Auckland toy retailer said yesterday he now had no Bindeez bead toys, which had sold for $7 to $60.
Another still had them on sale in $24.99 starter packs. They had been available all year and were popular.