Examiner Editorial: Federal consumer agency targets an entrepreneur

It hard to see how the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s actions against entrepreneur Craig Zucker amount to anything less than an abuse of power by the government and a possible personal vendetta by the head of the agency. Zucker faces a fine of up to $57 million from the CPSC for having sold a magnetic novelty toy, “Buckyballs,” that the federal agency deemed unsafe.

The agency’s conclusion was based on 22 cases between 2009 and 2011— about one out of every 100,000 sets sold — in which somebody swallowed one or more of the magnets.