Fake News: Massive Easter Egg Recall Did NOT Leave Millions Of Children In Danger

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Massive Easter Egg Recall Did NOT Leave Millions Of Children In Danger

An old story about a 2017 Easter Egg recall by Target has been recycled yet again with an alarmist headline added to make it seem like it is about a new recall that is very urgent because it is endangering 'millions' of children.

The latest incarnation of the story is an article published on March 16, 2018 by a site named "Fitness & Medical" titled "ALERT: Massive Easter Egg Recall Leaves MILLIONS Of Children In Danger- THROW THEM AWAY- They WILL Kill Your Kids - Fitness & Medical" (archived here) which opened:

Target has issued a massive recall for water-absorbing egg toys ahead of Easter Sunday after discovering the object can expand inside a child's body, causing life-threatening conditions if ingested.

If the small toy is ingested, it can expand inside a child's body and cause intestinal obstructions, resulting in severe discomfort, vomiting, dehydration and could be life threatening. Surgery is required to remove the toy from the body, if ingested. Medical professionals and parents should be aware that there is a possibility that the toys might not show up on an x-ray.

This recall involves Hatch & Grow Easter Eggs, Easter Grow Toys and Hatch Your Own Dino. Hatch & Grow Easter Eggs and Easter Grow Toys have model number 234-25-1200 on the back of the product's packaging.

Hatch Your Own Dino Egg has model number 234-09-0016 on the label inserted in the product's packaging. The pink, blue, or purple Hatch & Grow Easter Eggs include a white bunny, brown bunny, or butterfly.

As Politifact already noted when debunking the same hoax story posted by a different site a few weeks ago the information about the recall and the products is generally accurate but outdated: the recall happened last year and involved 560,000 items. It is unclear how many of the products were effectively returned but it is unlikely the remaining ones are putting "millions" of children in danger.

Users on social media who only saw this title, description and thumbnail had no way of knowing the story was about a recall that happened a year ago:

ALERT: Massive Easter Egg Recall Leaves MILLIONS Of Children In Danger- THROW THEM AWAY- They WILL Kill Your Kids - Fitness & Medical

Target has issued a massive recall for water-absorbing egg toys ahead of Easter Sunday after discovering the object can expand inside a child's body, causing life-threatening conditions if ingested. If the small toy is ingested, it can expand inside a child's body and cause intestinal obstructions, resulting in severe discomfort, vomiting, dehydration and could be life threatening. Surgery is required to remove the toy from the body, if ingested. Medical professionals and parents should be aware that there is a possibility that the toys might not show up on an x-ray. This recall involves Hatch & Grow Easter Eggs,

If you still have any of the affected products in your home you should probably throw them out. But rest assured the part about millions of children being in danger is hugely overstated.

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion