Tempest in a teapot

[unixronin]

The health blog on the New York Times has a column about the deadly danger to small children posed swallowing by various types of button-cell batteries.  This terrible danger happens THOUSANDS OF TIMES PER YEAR!!!  Well ... OK, maybe a few hundred ... no?  Ten to a dozen?

Well, OK, ALMOST ten.  ...Over the past six years.

Three hundred and forty million people, more or less, in the United States.  And in any given year, one or two of them swallow a button-cell battery and die as a result.

So, let's see ... how does that compare to other common risks?  No, wait: let's compare to RARE risks.  Oh, yes, here we go:  You are fifty times more likely to be struck and killed by lightning in any given year than you are to die from swallowing a button-cell battery.

But wait, not everyone who swallows a battery dies.  What about all the children that don't die, but still suffer serious injuries?

Well, the article says that's about a hundred people per year in the US at present, up from about fifteen per year in 1985. Out of three hundred and forty million.  That's, um ... gee. 130 times less than the number of people aged fifteen and under injured on those deadly, death-trap contrivances, bicycles, each year.  (About 13,000 in 2009.)  Hell, it's almost the number of 15-and-unders killed on bicycles in 2009 (93).

Well, we all knew bicycles were dangerous.  How about something nice and safe like the school playground?

ZOMG!!!  About two hundred thousand playground injuries per year among the 14-and-under set, about 90,000 of them severe (fractures, concussions, internal injuries, amputations etc).

Well, OK ... how about food?  Food's nice and safe, isn't it?

Well ... since you mention it ... actually, not so much.  WebMD says between 66 and 77 children under 10 die each year after choking on foods, and 10,000 children under age 15 are treated in emergency departments. Three quarters of those are children under 3 years old.  Even more deaths and choking injuries result from "swallowing balloons and small toys".

But Ms. Parker-Pope thinks we have an imminent crisis that desperately needs attention, because one to two people per year are dying from ingesting button cell batteries and maybe a hundred are being seriously injured.  We need to secure all battery compartments, everywhere, right away.

Or then again, Ms. Parker-Pope, maybe we could all start paying attention again to what our kids are getting into.  And maybe you could find something productive to do with the time on your hands, of which you appear to have rather too much if you have time to get all in a tizzy about a hazard so rare that, frankly, it's lost in the statistical noise.

Sometimes I swear we're actively breeding people for stupidity.

Comments

[polaris93.livejournal.com]

I agree that the security measures put in place by the Bush administration that were easily seen were not, by and large, worth a damn. Part of that was due to the gun-control lobby and a Congress that did not want to arm pilots, let alone citizens. The rest was window-dressing designed to assure the American public which, by then, was already in the midst of a recession which wouldn't have been made any better if people had stropped traveling abroad. Thre's no such thing as perfect security, of course, but the public saw that something seemed to be happening as far as tighter security went, and were reassured. There was also Gitmo, where captured terrorists went and where they stayed, well away from the American mainland -- which is no longer the case. They never got civilian trials; if anything, they were subject to something like a military tribunal, which ruled that they were too dangerous to let loose. There were other things that weren't obvious, partly because they weren't showy, so why bother showing them, and partly because you really don't want the people you're trying to keep out/fail in their purpose knowing what you're doing to keep them from doing that. That we never had another 9/11 or eve a successful smaller-scale terrorist attack sfter that during Dubya's tenure in office says something sure was going on. I do agree we will have to disagree on this one, though. Dubya's out of office and Obama is in, and Obama has dropped the ball, and not just on security, either. Everything is going to hell, which mostly isn't his fault, though, and I really am expecting the outbreak of a hot, shooting war sometime later this year, one started by somebody other than this country, which may well probably will involve nukes. There world's in a much scarier place than even during the Cold War. We could reason with the Soviets. We can't reason with terrorist states. And we don't have the right to forbid any nation from using nukes on somebody who has just nuked them. Self-defense is always an option and a moral right.

Forgive me; I have lost all hope. I am not depressed; I'm in despair. Between the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico and the current administration's complete lack of interest in protecting the American public (or at least using the bully-pulpit to denounce Congress for its lack of interest in doing so), the mainstream media's shenanigans, and a thousand other things, there's nothing that shows that things could get better. They won't. They may well soon get so bad that nuclear war starts, in which case, we can kiss everything off.