A new study co-authored by two pediatric gastroenterologists at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM) has highlighted the danger of small, high-powered magnets commonly sold as “desk toys” for adults, and which are sometimes ingested by children.

 

The study, published in Pediatrics, combines data from 25 children’s hospitals in the U.S, assessing 596 children over three years when high-powered magnets were reintroduced to the market, after having been removed previously by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2012. The research shows that:

• 95 percent of children exposed to the magnets were under 14 years of age;
• nearly one in 10 kids had a life-threatening injury such as bowel obstruction, perforation or bleeding;
• more than half (55.7 percent) of the children impacted by the magnets required hospitalization;

 

 

• almost half (46.3 percent) required a procedure to remove the magnets, or treatment for complications from the exposure;
• 17 percent of the children who were exposed to the magnets had development delays, and those children were three times more likely to have an injury related to the exposure, suggesting this is a particularly vulnerable population when it comes to this dangerous “toy.”

 

Efforts are underway to prevent the sale of these magnets and the associated harm they cause, but for now these researchers are trying to raise awareness about the dangers and discourage families from having them accessible to children.