Recent research provides a clear example of the risks of deregulation. The study found that poison center cells that involved children swallowing high-powered magnets rose sharply after 2017 in the U.S., following a reversal of a ban on these products that was implemented years earlier sin.
The high-powered magnets (10 to 30 times more powerful than the conventional version) are made from rare earth metals and began to appear in children’s toys as well as products marketed by adults as desk toys around early 2000s. Of course, anything small can be dangerous for children, who tend to put things in their mouths and may swallow or choke. But when there is more than one of those magnets swallow it (or a magnet and another piece of metal), the powerful pull between them can cause damage or obstructions in the cracking. In the worst cases, victims have died or needed emergency surgery to remove parts of the womb.
In 2012, the Consumer Product Safety Commission began to slow down the sale of these magnets in toys through voluntary recall. Prior to 2014, a new federal rule largely barred them from the market. In late 2016, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals struck the rule, and the magnets were again widely available by 2018.
This research, published in the Journal of Pediatrics in late January, they examined how the policy changes may affect the frequency of these injuries. They analyzed national poison control data from 2008 to 2019, looking specifically at calls involving children under 19 who swallowed magnets.
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In total, there were just over 5,700 magnet-related notifications over that period. Compared to the period 2008 to 2011, the average number of these calls per year from 2012 to 2017 fell by 33%. But once the magnets returned, the calls came up. In 2018 and 2019, the average number of calls per year rose 444% compared to when the magnets were banned. The number of calls deserving of serious medical attention, such as hospitalization, rose by 355%. Moreover, 39% of magnet-related calls in the study occurred in those two years alone.
Poison control calls do not account for all serious injuries that occur in the U.S., so the findings of the necessary study do not represent the danger of these magnets. But other recent research has revealed a similar pattern using reliable injury data. Study published in December 2020, for example, it found that the rate of magnet-related visits to the ER among children rose by 82% from 2017 to 2019, compared to the years 2013 to 2016. Another study in 2017 lorg that at least 15,000 children in the U.S. went to the ER between 2010 and 2015 with magnet-related injuries, but things began to fall after the CSPC’s actions in 2012.
Although at least one company recently he promised to stop making products with high-powered magnets after a long legal battle with the CSPC, the researchers warn that far-reaching changes will be needed to address the real problem. In the current study, for example, the level of these poison control calls for older children also increased. Teenagers may not intentionally swallow these magnets as often as toddlers, but they can still inadvertently ingest them when using them as a deceptive tongue or raising lips.
“These findings highlight the growing need for prevention or legislative efforts,” the study’s authors wrote.