Pediatricians Urge The Extension of Choking Prevention Strategies from Toys to Food By SEO Admin on February 23, 2010

When considering the risk of young children choking, thoughts tend to center more upon toys than upon food. But that can cause the risk of choking on food to be overlooked. Statistics currently on the website of the Centers for Disease Control state that in 2000, 160 children ages 14 years or younger died from an obstruction of the respiratory tract due to inhaled or ingested foreign bodies. Of these, 41% were caused by food items and 59% by nonfood objects. For every choking-related death, there are more than 100 visits to U.S. emergency departments.The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), noting that many of the prevention strategies currently in place to prevent choking on toys have not yet been implemented to prevent choking on food, issued a policy statement yesterdayin connection with an article titled Prevention of Choking Among Children that will appear in the March issue of Pediatrics. Food or small objects can cause choking if they get caught in your throat and block your airway. This keeps oxygen from getting to your lungs and brain. If your brain goes without oxygen for more than four minutes, you could have brain damage or die. Choking is a leading cause of injury and death among children, especially children 3 years of age or younger, says AAPs Committee On Injury, Violence, And Poison Prevention. Specific recommendations by the AAP include:

Warning labels on foods that pose a high choking risk.
A recall of food products that pose a significant choking hazard.
The establishment of a nationwide food-related choking-incident surveillance and reporting system.
Food manufacturers should design new food and redesign existing food to minimize choking risk.
CPR and choking first aid should be taught to parents, teachers and child care providers.
The existingNational Electronic Injury Surveillance SystemAll InjuryProgram of the CPSC should be modified to conduct more-detailedsurveillance of choking on food among children.

AAPs policy statement urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administrationto establish a systematic, institutionalized process forexamining and addressing the hazards of food-related choking.This process should include the establishment of the necessarysurveillance, hazard evaluation, enforcement, and public educationactivities to prevent food-related choking among children. AAP opined that the Food and Drug Administrationshould have the authority to address choking-related risks ofall food products, including meat products that fall under thejurisdiction of the US Department of Agriculture. Childrens toys were also targeted in AAPs policy statement, which called upon the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to increaseefforts to ensure that toys that are sold in retail store bins,vending machines, or on the Internet have appropriate choking-hazardwarnings; work with manufacturers to improve the effectivenessof recalls of products that pose a choking risk to children;and increase efforts to prevent the resale of these recalledproducts via online auction sites. Choking-preventionstandards for children's toys should be reevaluated and addressed,as appropriate, via revisions to the standards established underthe Child Safety Protection Act, the Consumer Product SafetyImprovement Act, or regulation by the CPSC. The lawyers at Levine & Slavit have decades of experience handling personal injury claims including those involving dangerous and defective products . For 50 years spanning 3 generations, we have obtained results for satisfied clients. We have offices in Manhattan and Long Island, handling cases in New York City, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and surrounding areas. If you or someone close to you has been injured by a product that was not properly manufactured, designed or labeled, contact the personal injury lawyers at Levine & Slavit for their help. To learn more, watch our videos.