WASHINGTON, DC – During National Poison Prevention Week, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission ( CPSC ) highlights serious and increasing risks facing young children, including an increase in unintentional narcotic poisoning, as well as additional risks identified in products with gel beads (also known as water beads).
The CPSC’s just-released annual report on childhood poisoning injuries and deaths found that
98 children under age 5 died from poisoning in 2022, a 66 percent increase from 2021. This
increase was largely linked to measures of narcotics and psychodysleptics. The number of deaths in this category almost doubled in one year, increasing from 33 deaths in 2021 to 59 in 2022.
The report highlighted the increasing risks related to these substances, as child deaths from
poisoning has increased consistently since 2019, with 17 deaths in 2018, the lowest number since the CPSC came into existence in 1972.
Additionally, the report revealed that 68,600 injuries in children under five years old were treated in emergency rooms during 2022, an increase of almost 10 percent from the estimated 62,600 injuries in 2021.
“The recent increase in childhood poisoning cases is heartbreaking,” said CPSC Chairman Alex Hoehn-Saric. “Keeping medications, cleaning products, liquid detergent packets, and button batteries in a safe place, out of the reach of children, is critical to protecting them.
CPSC is committed to preventing such tragedies by enforcing laws that require the safe packaging of substances and poisons, holding companies accountable for selling products that cause death, and informing caregivers about how to keep children safe.
In addition, the CPSC issued two product safety alerts today associated with new evidence of toxicity in some gel pellet products, which may harm the health of children.
In individual alerts, CPSC urged consumers to discard Jangostor and Tuladuo gel pellet products due to acrylamide levels that pose a risk of toxicity. None of the Chinese companies have agreed to an acceptable recall.
Product alerts highlight that the risks of water pellets go beyond ingestion, expansion and
obstruction within a child. Acrylamide is known to be a carcinogen. The large water pellets that the CPSC alerts contain levels of acrylamide in violation of the Federal Hazardous Substances Act.
CPSC data shows that nearly 7,000 water pellet injuries were treated in U.S. emergency rooms from 2018 to 2022. CPSC is also aware of the death of a 10-month-old girl in 2023.