http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/health/detergent-pods-pose-risk-to-children-study-finds.html 2014-11-10 06:34:32 Detergent Pods Pose Risk to Children, Study Finds About 6,000 trips to the emergency room by children under age 6 were connected to the laundry packets in 2012 and 2013, the report found. === Since the introduction of colorful, single-load packets of laundry detergent in 2012 through the end of 2013, more than 17,000 children under age 6 ate or inhaled the contents or squirted concentrated liquid from a packet into their eyes, researchers reported Monday. Their Critics contend that some brightly colored packets too closely resemble candy or a teething toy. Two years ago, the federal “These 17,000 children we found amounts to one child every hour being exposed to one of these laundry pod products,” said Dr. Marcel J. Casavant, a study author and the medical director of the poison center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “That’s a very different order of magnitude than other hazards.” Most of the cases occurred among children aged 1 or 2, and nearly 80 percent involved ingestion of the contents of a packet. Two deaths of children have been confirmed, one in Florida and another in New Jersey. Most commonly, children vomited, became lethargic, irritated their eyes, coughed or choked, the researchers found. About 6,000 were seen in emergency rooms. About 750 were hospitalized, and half required intensive care. The laundry packets tend to burst in a child’s mouth, and the concentrated contents can be swallowed all at once. “They are made with almost like a very thin Saran wrap that dissolves when wet,” said Dr. Cynthia Aaron, the medical director of the Regional Poison Control Center at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, which contributes to the national database. “They bite on it, and the contents go to the back of their throat.” At least 10 brands of premeasured laundry detergent packets are available, including top sellers like Tide Pods and All Mighty Pacs. Consumers spent about $525 million on the two brands in 2013, an increase of more than 55 percent compared to 2012, according to IRI, a market research firm based in Chicago. In recent years, Angela Farrell, a 24-year-old mother in Levittown, Pa., always kept detergent packets on a high shelf in her laundry room. One day in March, a packet fell on the ground, and her 18-month-old son put it in his mouth. She noticed immediately but, she said, “by the time I had pulled it out, he had swallowed its contents.” When the ambulance arrived, he was lethargic, struggling to breathe and He was in intensive care at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for three days. He eventually recovered. “I’m very upset it happened to me, because I never thought it could,” Mrs. Farrell said. She has switched back to liquid detergent. “I don’t have to worry about him getting into that big bottle as easily as he bit into a packet,” she said. Many laundry detergent packets are sold in soft pouches with Ziploc-style tops that critics say don’t deter preschoolers. Last August, At least four other companies “have made or are making changes regarding safety icons or opaque packaging,” said Brian Sansoni, a spokesman for the American Cleaning Institute, a trade group for detergent manufacturers. Dr. Fred M. Henretig, an emergency medicine doctor and senior toxicologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said none of these changes would be sufficient to prevent poisonings. The products should have “true child-resistant packaging,” he said. “The most important factor in decreasing bad outcomes for kids is to decrease the toxicity of the product itself, or decrease the ability for it to get into the hands or mouths of young children,” he said, adding, “It’s not about bad parenting.” Dr. Casavant and his colleagues called for better product packaging and labeling, public education and an industrywide product safety standard. ASTM International, “It’s important at this moment for a strong and effective industry consensus standard to be established,” said Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission. But the process may take one to two years, according to Len Morrissey, a director of technical operations at ASTM. Some consumers want faster changes. In the last year, 36,000 people have Erica Johnson, a political consultant in Homewood, Ill., created the petition a year ago, after her grandson swallowed a packet and was hospitalized. In 2013, a 16-month-old boy who bit into a laundry detergent packet went into cardiac arrest, according to Dr. Steven Marcus, the medical director of New Jersey Poison Information & Education System. The boy was resuscitated, but died a few days later. “As far as we are concerned, we are calling his death related to the ingestion,” Dr. Marcus said. The child’s parents, he noted, had the empty packet with chew marks.