In the cases of product being banned for safety, one of the reasons it's generally due to is the potential of swallowing it and causing harm or choking being high enough that a simple warning isn't sufficient. E.g. Buckyballs (swallow two separate groups of those and you'll be lucky to be in IC), Kinder Surprise (sucks, but somewhat understandable). The brush, while potentially dangerous, isn't probably dangerous enough to cause a ban since you don't swallow the brush as a whole and the likelihood of harm, while potentially severe, is small. It's also worth noting that things are generally banned if they'll affect children but not adults, which is a primary reason why the two examples I mentioned were banned.
> Kinder Surprise (sucks, but somewhat understandable)
I still don't understand this, the explanation I have read is that it's due to the inner plastic being totally hidden, but the potential to swallow a Kinder Surprise whole is very low, unless your kids are _really_ large.
I was going to sardonically quip that kids in the US are really large [1]. That only works if only the US bans the candy. I looked up Kinder Surprise on Wikipedia [2] and found out that Chile also bans it. So the quip doesn't work. Completely unsubstantiated, but I cynically interpret the ban as bribery purchased by Frito-Lay and General Mills to protect their Cracker Jack product [3] and breakfast cereal products. The older I get the more I realize that many seemingly "safety"-oriented rulings and legislation that strike many citizens as a faintly picayune concern to enshrine into bureaucratic machinations and fund enforcement via taxpayers are just flat-out purchased from politicians to stifle competition.
Well, Chile's ban is different than US's ban. The US bans it because it's a potential public health risk[1], because someone may choke on the toy inside, while Chile bans it because they apparently banned all kinds of advertisements and products aimed at kids that have gifts that come with the product (I don't know the rationale; there is an article linked on Wikipedia but it's in Spanish and didn't translate well. My guess is that they want to reduce childhood nutrition issues by not letting manufacturers give presents with candy.).
As an aside, if you have never had a Kinder Surprise before, there is an image on the Wikipedia page, and the egg is decent sized -- I could probably fit it in my mouth whole, but it wouldn't be comfortable. The toy inside is also inside of a capsule that I would find really hard to believe could even be swallowed because it's at least as big as a US quarter but about 1 inch tall if my memory serves me correctly, but I guess 3 kids deaths in the UK prove me wrong.
Yes, when I saw the size of the capsule and toys inside, I thought there were many common household items that were far, far easier to ingest, were way more within daily reach than candy, and enforcing the ruling on these toys was arguably a waste of limited taxpayer-funded manpower.
If you can get it in the front of your mouth you're already doing better than your peers and Darwin is waiting impatiently to endow you with your highly appropriate award.
