Surgeon warns that swallowing a button battery could be lethal | Hacker News Reader

Surgeon warns that swallowing a button battery could be lethal

independent.co.uk

61 pointsDanBC40 comments

My brother is an Er physician and yesterday we are all together and our dad is changing his hearing aid battery at the table. My brother points down at the battery on the table and says be careful thats a baby killer explaining that once swallowed the kid almost always dies.

The article is about lithium-based batteries. Zinc-Air batteries killing children is news to me. link?

It has nothing to do with the kind of battery, just the size.

It has to do with swallowing something that can electrolyze anything wet (like the surface of your insides) into nasty chemicals that will eat holes in important things.

The cell chemistry only plays an indirect role here (neither zinc nor lithium are terribly healthy in a child's body I guess).

The lithium batteries are thrown away with a fair bit of energy remaining: Internal resistance will go up too far to be useful to power something, but the cell can still electrolize when inside the body.

Zinc-air primaries on the other hand tend to be completely empty when removed from the hearing aid; they have a really nice flat discharge profile.

Moreover, the bigger ones tend to get stuck places. This wouldn't be too big an issue by itself (doctors have told me they are easy to remove if you know about them), but that they just sit there and burn into the flesh in the same spot.

To top it off, swallowing presents flu-like symptoms until it's too late.

Interestingly, swallowing separately two magnets can also be lethal. If they end up attracting each other, they can approximate two different regions of intestinal tract and cause ischemia.

This is why Buckyballs were banned in the United States[1].

[1] http://www.wired.com/2012/07/buckyballs-banned/

And buckyballs tried making them taste bad, but it wasn't enough to satisfy everyone.

Jesus, is there something still not banned in the USA? Except from guns, I mean.

Just for clarity: what exactly "banned" means here? Is it illegal to produce them? To sell them on the territory of USA? To buy them? Is it ok for me as a USA citizen order them, say, from China? Would I be arrested if I was seen playing with a set of buckyballs in the Central Park?

The article mentions the problem that the product was labeled ‘Ages 13+’ which contradicts some guidelines that obligate to label such products as ‘Ages 14+’. Does that mean that Buckyballs can be simply relabeled with appropriate caption and continue to be selled?

What it actually means to "ban" something at all?

You know it's funny, living now in China sometimes it feels a lot more free than the US. You can drink, smoke and piss anywhere, and you can go and buy basically whatever you want (except drugs), drive any way you want - as long as you're not really bothering other people no one really cares. It helps that the cops are more bored teenagers and less ex military assholes waiting to blow some holes in some meatbag. It's s bit of a free for all and sometimes it feels like a bit of fresh air

Like sure you can't talk about a few things or criticize the gov't, but I have better things to do anyways

I feel like people don't appreciate this enough. It's kinda refreshing not having to follow so many rules and laws, a more laid back society is better for your mind.

Though the US isn't that bad - most of the time, what you said also applies...

Same in southern Europe, except that criticizing the government is a national pastime here.

Exactly how I feel about living in China also.

While neither is ideal, from a purely practical point of view I'd much rather live in a society where you can freely criticize the government but some products (that are about as far off the needs hierarchy as you can get in this case) are not allowed to be sold for "nanny state" danger reasons.

Again, neither is my ideal, but greater freedom of speech wins for me every time (by a landslide).

"Like sure you can't talk about a few things or criticize the gov't"

That doesn't often work out so well.

A bunch of people noticed children getting serious internal injuries, requiring surgery, and asked the manfs to stop selling them as a toy for children, and to put bigger warnings on.

For a while the manufacturer ignored those requests, until people decided they'd had enough and moved to ban them. By that time light touch regulation had clearly failed, so people weren't keen on giving the manufacturer much of a second chance.

I'm pretty sure they are banned from being sold as toys. One can still buy neodymium magnetic beads from US resellers or import them if inclined to do so.

My dad is head of ENT at a children's hospital in Sydney and goes on a media blitz in the weeks before Christmas on tv radio and newspapers warning parents to keep these batteries away from kids.

It's a real problem. Every year he removes these from little kids. They're a lot more dangerous than almost any other foreign objects that get stuck because of the electrolysis causing caustic soda.

Be vigilant with your little ones and their new toys.

could kill? This problem has been known since 2013 in Aus ~ http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3798752.htm

"Around 20 children a week are presenting to emergency departments around the country after ingesting batteries." [0]

[0] In November 2015 the message is being escalated ~ http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4357330.htm

The findings of the Coronial inquest into Summer Steer's death were recently handed down: http://www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/444...

I really wish articles would be more visually informative. A photograph of a 'button battery' would be useful. A photograph of the histology of the oesophagus pre and post exposure would be great.

Here's a picture of what happens if a button battery is left for a couple of hours in a sausage: http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/family/543180/kylie-andrews-face...

Ugh! Jesus christ, I knew they tasted bad, but aside from tasting just like 9 volt batteries, I figured that was the limit of their unpleasantness.

Also, the clickbait advertising on that site is just plain weird.

"Button battery" summons up a fairly familiar image for most US-based readers. Here's a picture for you:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Coin-cel...

Some people would call it a 'watch battery' too.

Every one of my electronics catalogs calls them coin-cells.

Yes but people are funny animals most people call a computer monitor a "TV" and anything else connected to the computer the "hard drive".

Those look like standard cr2032 cells. I was thinking of the tiny zinc air size 5, 312, etc cells.

(None of these are batteries unless installed in a multi cell battery...)

This is why most kids toys have screw-shut battery compartments now, the bane of every parent's existence.

And why do the kids not vomit up these things? The OP states "here are as many as 6,000 button battery swallowings". That number seems low given the prevalence of batteries. Batteries are batteries and kids are kids. These chemical reactions seem inevitable once a battery is swallowed. So why are so many kids getting off without injury?

I assume that when the nasty chemistry gets going, the body tried to expel everything. Our stomaches are very good at reacting that way when things get weird. I wonder if the minority of kids who suffer horribly injuries are a subset, perhaps those who had been given anti-nausea medication for some other reason.

I guess the problem is if the battery breaks after it's past the stomach?

The customary warning, "Keep out of children", is very appropriate here.

While the article is about the lithium coin cells, I think hearing aid batteries are an even bigger risk.

Given that zinc air batteries last for a week or two in most hearing aids (I use these batteries on active shooting earplugs; they are amazing), it would be great if some store or other facility frequented by users would do the change in person with proper disposal for free. (Yes, I buy the batteries in bulk to save money, but even with the tabs, I can imagine this being a difficult task for older people with bad eyesight or motor skills to do, so paying a small premium at retail would work.)

Doesn't work as well for homebound users. Maybe a battery changing robot which stored the batteries internally, including used ones, for bulk replacement and disposal? Although a lifetime for a 70 year old of batteries could probably fit in a small enough volume.

Maybe a (partial) solution would be to make the batteries taste bad? Some coating on the outside that makes them taste immediately revolting and increases the likelihood of they'll be spit out

For it to taste bad quickly enough such a coating would have to be water soluble. Something like that, on a battery, is asking for trouble. No battery company wants a reputation for destroying electronics. And heaven help those with in-ear hearing aids once that noxious coating gets a little wet and drips into their ear canal.

> For it to taste bad quickly enough such a coating would have to be water soluble.

I question that.. There are some pretty powerful bitterants available for this sort of thing. You don't need much denatonium benzoate to make something unpleasant to taste, for example: "Dilutions of as little as 10 ppm are unbearably bitter to most humans." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium

But isn't denatonium benzoate water soluble? Using that as a coating on batteries would make for a rather unappealing product. You wouldn't enjoy opening the package or handling the things with bare hands. Children's toys would be ruined by the smell.

Oh, yeah I guess you're right, it's water soluble. I was thinking more "hygroscopic" when you talked about it ruining electronics, but I guess you just meant that if it got wet it would cause the device to have bitterant all over it forever.

I don't think it necessarily needs to be that messy. It has no smell, and you can buy nail polish that contains the stuff (used to deter nail biting and thumb sucking), so apparently it can be painted on in a fairly durable fashion. Just a dot on the battery case ought to do it.

I'm going to hold out for the Surgeon General's advice before giving up my button battery habit.

It's not clear that it's worth quitting just based on what any old surgeon says!

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