Between 2006 and 2008, nearly 14,000 kids under the age of 6 swallowed tobacco products and got sick enough to warrant a call to a poison control center, according to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. The study found that cigarettes were the most common item ingested, followed by smokeless tobacco products, and that 70 percent of the victims were younger than one year.
Researchers raised concerns that certain smokeless tobacco products, which are gaining in popularity as more public places ban smoking, resemble candy and that children are likely to eat them if left within reach. While cigarettes made up the vast majority of the tobacco ingested, the years surveyed came before new smokeless products were introduced.
One researcher compared the packaging of one product, Camel Orbs, to a Tic-Tac box and encouraged the Food and Drug Administration, which recently began oversight of the tobacco industry, to consider regulations.
Reuters has more on the study. Here’s an abstract of the study with a link to the full report (PDF).
From the report you site, it reads as if the kids also ate plain old cigarettes too, so the numbers that are sited are misleading.
Unintentional Child Poisonings Through Ingestion of “Conventional” and Novel Tobacco Products
Hi Phil — Thanks for your comment. We updated the post to clarify that the numbers include cigarettes. According to the study, cigarettes were the most common item ingested, followed by smokeless tobacco products.