This report identifies specific policy recommendations to prevent child fatalities in Colorado and provides an overview of programmatic accomplishments for state Fiscal Year 2017-18, as required in statute.
Child FatalityPrevention Act; Article 20.5 Sections 401-409 of Title 25 of the Colorado Revised Statutes
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:
High-powered magnets were effectively removed from the US market by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in 2012 but returned in 2016 after federal court decisions. The United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit cited imprecise data among other reasons as justification for overturning CPSC protections. Since then, incidence of high-powered magnet exposure has increased markedly, but outcome data are limited. In this study, we aim to describe the epidemiology and outcomes in children seeking medical care for high-powered magnets after reintroduction to market.
METHODS:
This is a multicenter, retrospective cohort study of patients aged 0 to 21 years with a confirmed high-powered magnet exposure (ie, ingestion or insertion) at 25 children’s hospitals in the United States between 2017 and 2019.
RESULTS:
Of 596 patients with high-powered magnet exposures identified, 362 (60.7%) were male and 566 (95%) were <14 years of age. Nearly all sought care for magnet ingestion (n = 574, 96.3%), whereas 17 patients (2.9%) presented for management of nasal or aural magnet foreign bodies, 4 (0.7%) for magnets in their genitourinary tract, and 1 patient (0.2%) had magnets in their respiratory tract. A total of 57 children (9.6%) had a life-threatening morbidity; 276 (46.3%) required an endoscopy, surgery, or both; and 332 (55.7%) required hospitalization. There was no reported mortality.
CONCLUSIONS:
Despite being intended for use by those >14 years of age, high-powered magnets frequently cause morbidity and lead to high need for invasive intervention and hospitalization in children of all ages.
Patients presenting to our PED typically have primary care physicians; however, access to their physicians during off-hours and availability of off-site testing is limited. Public policy aimed at decreasing overcrowding in the PED should address these themes.
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