A 16-year study at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre has found that children are still brought to the hospitals for swallowing the safety tabs from canned soda or other beverages given them.
The safety tabs are especially found mostly in teens despite having it redesigned by beverage companies to fold back upon opening but stay attached to the containers.
“I think we all know if you fiddle with these stay tabs, you can easily break them off,” Dr. Lane Donnelly, who led the study, said during the Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago.
Donnelly believes children play and eventually break off the tab, drop it into the soda can and accidentally swallow the tab. The detached tabs have jagged edges that could injure the stomach or intestine.
Parents are advised to be aware of this problem when giving kids canned soda or other beverages.
It will also be beneficial if beverage companies consider a new design that makes the tabs harder to break off when fiddling with it.
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