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Life or health-related accident information reported to Consumer Affairs Agency

Part 1 : Today's consumer issues and consumers' behavior/attitude
Chapter 3 : Trends in consumer issues
Section 2 : Life or health-related accident information reported to Consumer Affairs Agency

Consultations on damage/risk information are increasing

  • Among consumer affairs consultations in FY 2014, 11,398 cases were classified as "damage information," and 5,017 cases as "risk information." The numbers have been on the rise for the past decade (note that FY 2013 experienced two major incidents: white blotches on the skin of users of cosmetics and frozen food tainted with pesticide).

Figure 3-2-8 Number of cases involving damage/risk information

Children can be seriously injured by swallowing button batteries accidentally, etc.

  • Children's accidents are caused by various products recently becoming popular in our daily lives, such as button battery being swallowed accidently or laundry detergent capsules being ingested or contacted with eyes.
  • If button batteries were swallowed by accident, there are high risks of serious symptoms.
    Therefore, safer product development would be requested, such as to have child resistant structure so that children could not take out the batteries themselves.
  • There are other accidents such as children nearly drowned in the bath tub while using neck float rings and children injured while riding kick scooter.
  • Figure 3-2-15 X-ray of a one-year old who accidentally swallowed a button battery Figure 3-2-16 Endoscopic photo of the esophagus of a one-year old who accidentally swallowed a button battery
  • Figure 3-2-13 An example of how neck float ring is used(image) Figure 3-2-14 Shape and size of button batteries Figure 3-2-19 Kick scooter
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