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doctor in new zealand 13 year old child’s body part had to be removed boy’s intestines after he swallowed Dozens of strong magnets were purchased from a popular online marketplace.
Boy Swallowed They ordered 100 small, high-powered magnets First, Despite a ban on the sale of items for personal or household use in the country since 2014.
surgeons described the matter as “dangerous” Due to the difficulty of enforcing the ban, online marketplaces allow children to access magnets cheaply.
“We present the case of a 13-year-old boy who was admitted to hospital with generalized abdominal pain lasting four days,” surgeons at Tauranga Hospital wrote. New Zealand Medical Journal,
“He disclosed swallowing approximately 80-100 5×2 mm high-strength (neodymium) magnets approximately one week earlier, which were purchased from a foreign online marketplace (TEMU),” they wrote in the study.
Neodymium is a rare-earth metal element that is used to provide some of the strongest magnets available and can be easy to purchase online. Doctors have warned that if swallowed, such magnets can puncture the intestine and be life-threatening.
“When swallowed, these magnets can attach to each other through the intestine, causing fistulas, which are abnormal connections between two parts inside the body, or They can create holes in the intestines“Said pediatric gastroenterologist Sunpreet Kaur.
According to a blog post from University of California Davis Health, “These magnets can cause great harm, require surgery, or even cause death if swallowed.”
Researchers said the latest case from New Zealand is a warning about online marketplaces for children.
“We believe this case highlights the dangers of online marketplaces in our pediatric population,” the doctors wrote.
Such magnets have been marketed as toys for children and are sold in sets to create different shapes and are also used as fidget toys. Professor Alex Sims of the University of Auckland said, “Unfortunately, they often come in the form of brightly colored small balls, making them attractive for children to swallow. In fact, the small high-powered magnets are so dangerous that they are banned for sale in some situations in both Australia and New Zealand.”
New Zealand law bans the sale of such magnets for personal or home use, but they may still be used by educational institutions for teaching purposes or in other products.
“The issue of enforcement becomes more complex when, as the authors point out, products are purchased on foreign online marketplaces that are easily accessible by children, the purchases are inexpensive and do not always require age verification,” Dr. Sims said.
“Parents should not allow their children to purchase goods on any online marketplace unsupervised, all purchases should be supervised or at least supervised by a parent,” he said.
Temu said that after becoming aware of the matter, it has initiated an internal review.
“We are saddened to learn of the incident that has been reported and we wish the boy a full and speedy recovery,” Temu said, according to Radio New Zealand.
“We take product security very seriously and continuously monitor our platform to ensure that sellers are complying with the security regulations of the markets where they do business,” the company said.