The Washington Post wished us a merry Christmas this year by reporting on the 1,600 cases of children ingesting high-powered rare-earth magnets used in desk toys, up sixfold from just three years ago. Why has magnet ingestion, which can lead to intestinal shredding, become an epidemic of late? Because the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2016 that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) overreached by issuing an effective ban on the desk toys.
One of the three judges who heard that case and ruled for the toy industry, leading three years later to a surge in children eating powerful magnets and ripping up their insides, is Neil Gorsuch, President Trump's first pick for the U.S. Supreme Court. It's a cautionary tale for what happens when judges decide to insert themselves into regulatory policymaking, and it's poised to get much, much worse.
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