> The courts had decided that if a twelve-year-old wondered what cobalt chloride tasted like, was stupid enough to find out, and poison himself in the process, the manufacturer of the Chemistry set was at fault.

There are ways to ingest something without being “stupid”, like a spill accidentally contaminating a food surface like a kitchen table or counter.

Also, how many kids jokingly made their siblings eat sand or some other thing they weren’t supposed to eat? As a parent, I appreciate things being marketed to kids to be as non-lethal as possible.

This is a classic fallacy: “nothing bad happened to me, so if someone else gets hurt they must be stupid”.

This reminds me of memes decrying modern safety rules showing kids in the 50s riding in the front seats of cars without seatbelts.

It’s not always about the chances of an accident happening, it’s about the minor chance of an accident causing catastrophic results.