Recent research provides a clear example of the dangers of deregulation. The study found that central poison cells involving children who swallowed high-powered magnets increased substantially after 2017 in the United States, after the reversal of the ban on these products decreed years earlier.
High-powered magnets (10 to 30 times more powerful than the typical version) come from rare earth metals and started to appear in children’s toys, as well as in products marketed for adults, such as table toys in the early 2000s Of course, any small object can be potentially dangerous for children, who tend to put things in their mouth and can swallow or choke them. But when more than one of these magnets are swallowed (or a magnet and another piece of metal), the powerful attraction between them can damage or cause obstructions in the intestine. In the worst cases, the victims died or needed emergency surgery to remove parts of their intestines.
In 2012, the Consumer Product Safety Commission began cracking down on the sale of these toy magnets through voluntary recalls. In 2014, a new federal rule essentially banned them from the market. In late 2016, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the rule and magnets were once again widely available in 2018.
This research, Published in the Journal of Pediatrics in late January, he studied how policy changes may have affected the prevalence of these injuries. They analyzed national poison control data from 2008 to 2019, looking specifically at links involving children under 19 who swallowed magnets.
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In total, there were just over 5,700 magnet-related calls during that period. In comparison with the period from 2008 to 2011, the average number of these calls per year from 2012 to 2017 decreased by 33%. But as soon as the magnets returned, the calls went off. In 2018 and 2019, the average number of calls per year increased by 444% over the period of prohibition of magnets. The number of calls that merited serious medical attention, such as hospitalization, also increased by 355%. Furthermore, 39% of all magnet-related calls in the study occurred in just those two years.
Poison control calls do not take into account all the serious injuries that happen in the U.S., so the study’s findings are not necessarily representative of how dangerous these magnets are. But other recent research has shown a similar pattern using reliable injury data. A study Published in December 2020, for example, found that the rate of visits related to the magnet to the PS among children increased 82% from 2017 to 2019, compared to the years 2013 to 2016. Another study in 2017 found that at least 15,000 children in the U.S. went to the emergency room between 2010 and 2015 with magnet-related injuries, but cases started to drop after CSPC’s actions in 2012.
Although at least one company has recently Prometheus to stop manufacturing products with high-powered magnets after a long legal battle with the CSPC, the researchers warn that far-reaching changes will be needed to really solve the problem. In the current study, for example, the rate of these poison control calls has also increased for older children. Teenagers may not intentionally swallow these magnets as often as young children do, but they may still accidentally ingest them when using them as fake lips or lip piercings.
“These results reflect the growing need for preventive or legislative efforts,” wrote the study’s authors.