Recent research provides a clear example of the dangers of deregulation. The study found that poison center cells in which children swallow powerful magnets increased significantly after 2017 in the US, following the reversal of the ban on these products introduced years earlier.
The highly powered magnets (10 to 30 times more powerful than the regular version) are made of rare earth metals and appeared in the early 2000s in children’s toys as well as adult products such as desk toys. Of course, any small object can be potentially dangerous to children who tend to put things in their mouths and it can swallow or choke. But if there is more than one of these magnets swallowed (or a magnet and another piece of metal), can damage the powerful pull between them or cause obstructions in the intestines. In the worst cases, victims died or needed emergency surgery to remove parts of their intestines.
In 2012, the Consumer Product Safety Commission began selling these magnets in toys through voluntary reminders. By 2014, a new federal rule essentially banned them from the market. At the end of 2016, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the rule, and the magnets were widely available again by 2018.
This research, published at the end of January in the Journal of Pediatrics studied how the policy changes could affect the incidence of these injuries. They analyzed national poison control data from 2008 to 2019 and specifically looked at calls involving children under the age of 19 who swallowed magnets.
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In total, there were just over 5,700 magnet-related calls during that period. Compared to the period 2008 to 2011, the average number of calls per year decreased by 33% from 2012 to 2017. But as soon as the magnets came back, the calls skyrocketed. In 2018 and 2019, the average number of calls per year increased by 444% compared to the period when the magnets were banned. The number of calls that deserved serious medical attention, such as hospitalization, also increased by 355%. What’s more, 39% of all magnet-related calls in the study occurred during the two years only.
Poisoning calls do not take into account every serious injury that occurs in the US, so the conclusions of the study are not necessarily representative of how dangerous these magnets are. But other recent research has shown a similar pattern using reliable injury data. N study published in December 2020, for example, found that the rate of magnet-related visits to the ER among children increased by 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 ER between 2010 and 2015 with magnet-related injuries, but the cases began to decline following the action of the CSPC in 2012.
While at least one company has recently done so promise to stop making products with strongly powered magnets after a long legal battle with the CSPC, the researchers warn that drastic changes will be needed to really address the problem. In the current study, for example, the rate of these poison control calls also increased for older children. Teenagers may not swallow these magnets as often as young children, but they can still accidentally ingest them when used as false tongue or lip holes.
“These results reflect the growing need for preventive or legislative efforts,” the study authors wrote.