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By Miriam Raftery
November 8, 2014 (San Diego’s East County) – Laundry pods are colorful packets of liquid detergent intended to offer convenient use in washing machines. But to kids, they look like candy or juice.
Over 17,000 children have been poisoned or injured by laundry pods—an average of one child every hour. Thirty of those children went into comas, a dozen suffered seizures, and one child died. Children who swallowed or inhaled the products also suffered vomiting, choking, coughing, drowsiness, and eye irritations. Half of the exposures were minor, but the rest – that’s about 8,500--were serious poisoning cases and 769 required hospitalization after the contents of laundry pods—or what some now call “poison pods.”
Those are the findings of a study published in the Journal of Pediatrics, conducted by researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
The Centers for Disease control has previously published a report warning medical professionals to be aware of the risk of laundry pod poisoning in young children.
Dr. Gary Smith, author of the study, believes packaging is not adequately regulated, CBS News reports.
Some manufacturers of laundry pods are taking steps to put warnings on packaging and educate parents and others who care for small children.
Parents are advised to keep laundry pods stored in locked cabinets up high out of children’s reach, if you use them at all. The contents are highly concentrated, since just one small pod will wash an entire load of laundry.
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