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]

Interesting point. Most of my friends at the USGS are retired, now, but it might be interesting to get their perspective on it. (I liked their response to the disaster film on the Yellowstone supervolcano---they loved it, because it was realistic: "If it happens, we're all going to die.")

I would love to see their take on the ongoing crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, though it's likely to consist largely of words spelled with four letters (or longer and worse ones). ;-)

Sorry, but I've read about the FEMA messup on Katrina in some detail, and part of the problem was that a lot of the people Dubya appointed to manage it had no prior experience in emergency management. They knew how to deal with security problems, but not much of anything else. So they treated New Orleans like a security problem, which was a completely inappropriate response. And the fallout is still rattling through. No conspiracy, just bad choices. In terms of 9/11, the immediate Bush response to that was good and totally appropriate. I actually applauded his handling of it, since it was a swift response to a totally unprecedented terrorist action. Would have been nice if a lot of other actions were as good.

Okay, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Dubya, for reasons that are not political in nature, and are impossible to describe, so I won't try here or elsewhere. I realize this will probably get me killed by a giant pack of bloggers of all political persuasions, but hey, any day is a good day to die. I've been swimming upstream literally since I was conceived -- see, e.g., http://polaris93.livejournal.com/1714735.html, http://polaris93.livejournal.com/1715175.html, http://polaris93.livejournal.com/1715455.html, http://polaris93.livejournal.com/1715673.html for details. At any rate, this is where I will differ with just about everybody about Dubya, and that isn't going to change, no matter what.

So don't be so quick to assume what I think. Maybe you should actually read what I'm writing, rather than leaping to conclusions and lashing out. However, I suspect that you're just doing what I am---screaming in the back of your head over an unprecedented disaster on a global scale, and the fact it's like watching a slow-motion play-by-play of global eco-collapse. I know that I feel physically sick every time I think about it.

That's true.

Fun to attack public figures? Hmm, like Obama? Or maybe accusing someone in LJ of certain beliefs without any evidence?

I never attack anyone for fun. Human beings are great big nasty animals that can make a real dent in you if they want to, and if you attack them, they'll want to. I took some combat-arts training which ground in that attacking anyone or anything for fun is a bad idea. So when I say something that could be construed as an attack, I mean it, and am saying on the basis of the best information I have at the time.

Sorry, that was uncalled-for. But the bottom line is that we like to have someone in authority to blame for what we perceive as "letting it happen." Which isn't always the appropriate party. Scapegoating becomes popular, too.

I'd be satisfied with someone in charge who has his/her act together and moves on terrible things in an appropriate way. Right now, whoever's in charge doesn't have his act together, and is moving at the rate of cold molasses. And because of it we're all in terrible trouble. Surely the Democrats could have mustered somebody better than that guy to run against Dubya. Why didn't they?

As I say, I think we put too much faith in the government, overall.

Yes, we do. But when it comes to disasters on this kind of scale, ones that come to pass because somebody wasn't paying attention to either to pphysical reality or building codes (or the equivalent), because of the way we've all set things up, the government has to get involved if the problem is to be solved. Or even nibbled away at.