TWO Auckland preschool children needed hospital treatment after swallowing a popular toy's "magic beads" which contain a chemical that converts into the toxic illegal drug fantasy when ingested.
The Hong Kong-manufactured craft toy Bindeez - Australia's 2007 Toy Of The Year - was yesterday pulled off shelves in New Zealand and Australia.
One child was unconscious on arrival at Auckland's Starship children's hospital after swallowing the beads, The New Zealand Herald reported today.
A second child had also been treated at Starship in the past month after ingesting beads.
Both children had recovered.
In Australia, two NSW children have been hospitalised over the past 10 days suffering seizures after eating the beads, while a two-year-old boy from Toowoomba in south-eastern Queensland was yesterday flown to a Brisbane hospital after swallowing Bindeez beads.
New Zealand Ministry of Consumer Affairs spokesman Martin Rushton said last night 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.
The popular craft toy has been officially banned in NSW, Queensland, the ACT, South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory, with other states likely to follow suit.
Testing by scientists in NSW found the chemical link to the drug gamma-hydroxy butyrate (GHB) - also known as fantasy or Grievous Bodily Harm - which can also cause drowsiness, coma and can lead to death.
The drug was a factor in the cruise ship death of Brisbane mother Dianne Brimble, a Sydney inquest this year found.
"It can cause seizure-like activity and fitting and both of the children that presented to the Children's Hospital at Westmead (in Sydney) had these symptoms ... quite serious effects and potentially life-threatening," Sydney-based poisons specialist Dr Naren Gunja said.
Children playing with the toy arrange the variously coloured beads on a plastic grid and then, once sprayed with water, the beads become stuck together and the shape can be removed.
