Saturday, 29 May 2021

Tik-Toking Time-Bomb?

65 UK children have had urgent surgery to remove swallowed magnets. A high percentage of these cases are teenagers following a Tik-Tok craze (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/29/deadly-magnet-tongue-piercings-should-be-banned-says-nhs). The craze involves dancing around with a simulated tongue piercing. The 'piercing' consists of a small round magnet on the upper and lower surfaces of the tongue. Ingesting more than one magnet can, however, be life threatening. The magnets are forced together in the intestine and can cut off blood supply. This can cause necrosis (death) in these tissues. The NHS (they are pretty busy with Covid and its aftermath) would like the magnets banned. It's difficult, however, to see how this could be done as it's easy to magnetise ball-bearings. It's also difficult to stop a craze but something else will come along to take its place.

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