The first Global Button Battery Task Force Meeting took place on 17 July 2024 to address ongoing concerns about the dangers of button batteries when accidentally swallowed by children.
With their small size and attractive shiny surface, button batteries have a dangerous appeal for toddlers and small children to pick them up and put them in their mouth. Around 8000 children each year suffer severely or die after ingesting a button battery. The problem occurs when an ingested battery gets lodged and stuck in the oesophagus. When the battery reacts with saliva and tissue of the oesophagus, it creates a hydroxide-rich, alkaline solution that essentially dissolves tissue. This can cause severe complications such as oesophageal perforation, vocal cord paralysis and erosion into the airway or major blood vessels. Fortunately problems do not occur when the battery passes the oesophagus and comes into the stomach. When this happens the battery will be excreted naturally. 
The meeting took place by video and was hosted from Philadelphia by Professor Ian Jacobs, Professor of Otorhinolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
15 participants attended from the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Australia. The meeting acknowledged that great progress being made in improving safety through devices such as safer packaging, bitter taste and a blue dye that induces blue saliva to raise the alarm when ingested. However, the damage will still be potentially lethal if a child does swallow a battery.
“The meeting concluded that there is an ongoing urgent need for an intrinsically safe button battery, which doesn’t cause harm when ingested,” said Professor Dikkers, Emeritus Professor or the Department of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at Amsterdam UMC.
See our indepth interview with Professor Dikkers in ENT & Audiology News :
https://www.entandaudiologynews.com/development/interviews/post/frederik-dikkers-championing-change-in-laryngology
