Since 2009, there have been at least a dozen ingestions of the magnets in Buckyballs toys.
But for the same reason again, pure buckyballs are of little medical use.
Buckyballs, as they became known colloquially, are football-shaped molecules made of 60 carbon atoms linked by single and double bonds.
Dr Dugan and her team overcame this by fitting buckyballs with extra molecular handles made of a substance called malonic acid.
Buckyballs could be powerful molecules to deliver drugs for cancer and HIV.
The commission asked the makers of Buckyballs and Buckycubes to stop selling their products, but they refused, according Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the federal agency.
There are five warnings on the packaging and instructions for Buckyballs, he says, and the company won't sell them in stores that cater exclusively to children.
"You have to keep them up high, like scissors, or prescription drugs, " says Alan Schoem, a lawyer for the company that makes Buckyballs, the leading adult magnet toy on the market.
Much remains to be learned about the effectiveness of the buckyballs, as well as any side-effects (though a lot of researchers seem fairly sure that something so inert cannot have any).
Buckyballs are exceptionally good at mopping up free radicals.
Buckyballs have been confounding scientists for years.
ENGADGET: Alt-week 8.4.12: buckyballs, bosons and bodily fluids Alt
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