[HN Gopher] Decline of cash credited for drop in surgery for chi...
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Decline of cash credited for drop in surgery for children
swallowing objects
Author : geox
Score : 39 points
Date : 2025-03-29 20:04 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| timewizard wrote:
| Flatly absurd. These are the kinds of connections only a
| schizophrenic mind could make.
|
| "For example, surgeons performed 484 (31%) fewer procedures to
| remove something from a child's nose in 2022 compared with 2012."
|
| So your sample size is so absurdly small that your conclusions
| could not possibly have any meaning. What a waste of time this
| article was.
|
| --
|
| EDIT: The population of the UK is 68 million people and this is
| an entirely retrospective assessment. There's probably a reason
| they just didn't link to the RCSE page itself as it's speculation
| is far more reserved:
|
| https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/news-and-events/media-centre/press-...
|
| That reads far less like a paper trying to "nudge" people in a
| preferred direction.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I wish it had better data to back it up, but it's reasonable to
| think that coins are a popular thing for kids to play with.
| MajimasEyepatch wrote:
| Is sample size even relevant here? If they're working with NHS
| data, presumably they have pretty reliable population data
| (i.e. not randomly sampled) to work with.
|
| And regardless, even if it was a sample, I don't see how a
| sample of thousands would be too small to detect a very large
| effect like that, unless the variance was extremely high. (But
| again, I'm not sure that complaining about "sample size" even
| makes sense in this case.)
| krisoft wrote:
| > So your sample size is so absurdly small that your
| conclusions could not possibly have any meaning.
|
| What do you mean by sample size? These are total numbers for
| the whole year. There is no sampling going on.
|
| > The population of the UK is 68 million people
|
| Ok? So what?
|
| > and this is an entirely retrospective assessment.
|
| Again, what does this mean? How else would you notice these
| trends? Proactively?
|
| > There's probably a reason they just didn't link to the RCSE
| page itself as it's speculation is far more reserved
|
| I read both, and they seem to say the same. Where do you see
| the difference?
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Well can we really make inferences from the population of the
| UK to that of bigger countries? Maybe only people on tiny
| island nations have this problem.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Getting rid of 1C//2C//5C/ coins would be a help, simply so there
| are fewer coins floating around - less change given on an average
| transaction.
|
| My kids love playing with coins and before they turn 4 or so,
| love sticking them in their mouth. You have to be careful not to
| leave them around. We got a gumball machine that dispenses M&Ms,
| so at least now they think of coins as "something I should spend"
| instead of "something I should chew on".
|
| Coins aren't that toxic... most of the time. An even worse threat
| is button and coin cell batteries. Those should really leave any
| parent worried. When disposing of them, they _need_ to be wrapped
| up in something big enough they can't be swallowed and then taped
| up so the coin can't get out. Lately I've been disposing of them
| in a sharps container I have for getting rid of Stanley knife
| razor blades, another decent choice.
| hinkley wrote:
| Not just kids but also dogs.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Wait, do Americans (judging from your 1cent coins) not have
| battery recycling? All my coin cells just go in the battery
| recycling.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| I'd say in this case it's worse if you have recycling because
| then you have to keep them around until you get them to
| recycling vs. just chucking them in the bin.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| But they can stay in the "dangerous objects that children
| don't have access to" place, until you take them to the
| battery recycling.
| wiether wrote:
| So what you need is... a recycling bin where you put stuff
| that are awaiting your next trip to the recycling station.
|
| Batteries, light-bulbs, small electronics...
| kulahan wrote:
| Sounds expensive to support all the logistics of that
| bin.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| For me it's just a shoebox by the door that comes with me
| the next time I go to a thrift store or other
| participating e-waste handler.
| rconti wrote:
| In my American city, yes, we can put batteries in a zip-lock
| bag on top of our trash bin. But I'm not going to do this for
| a single coin cell.
|
| I usually just have a stack/pile/box of electronics and
| batteries to take to the local electronics recycling place a
| few miles away. Unfortunately, the pile is never 0, because
| as soon as I drop it off, I find something new to get rid of.
| trollbridge wrote:
| A dedicated bin in front of my house for it? No.
|
| I'm not really going to make a special trip to some place to
| recycle tiny little batteries - and most recycling is a scam
| anyway that either gets dumped in the regular rubbish or else
| gets shipped to a third world country.
|
| For things that can be legitimately recycled I make sure to
| reuse them... cardboard is one thing that is legitimately
| recycled here with special places to drop it off that is
| worth the special trip.
|
| For plastic trash, it isn't recyclable and is one of the most
| irritating aspects of buying anything new: a mountain of
| unusable plastic. The same goes for takeout food.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| At least where I am in the US, the Goodwill also
| participates in the state's E Waste program, so I just have
| a little box of used batteries that comes with me when I
| spring clean and inevitably decide to donate something.
| nosioptar wrote:
| The Goodwills in my area all claim to do e-waste. I've
| never been to one that will accept e-waste.
| mystified5016 wrote:
| A lot of places in the US just don't have recycling at all.
| I've never heard of a municipal recycling program that takes
| batteries. Everywhere in the US I'm aware of you have to take
| batteries to a specialty drop-off location for recycling.
| They're all private businesses like Home Depot or small
| battery shops.
|
| Because of this, a horrifying number of batteries just go
| into the landfill
| maxerickson wrote:
| My county is about 35,000 people. There's no pickup for
| batteries, but they accept them for dropoff on site (along
| with other recyclables).
|
| I think this is pretty common, probably any landfill with a
| household hazardous waste program.
| cmurf wrote:
| Typically it's a one day per year household hazardous waste
| drop off. Bigger cities may have more frequency.
|
| Any other day and it's usually a volunteer business somewhere
| in the town. It may have a fee.
| bgnn wrote:
| Oh that's not practical at all.
|
| We have battery drop off points every neighbourhood
| supermarket, which is in every couple of kilometers or so
| (Europe).
| rage4774 wrote:
| https://archive.is/2025.03.28-005050/https://www.theguardian...
| hinkley wrote:
| I'd like to see a similar analysis on rechargeable devices vis a
| vis batteries instead of coins.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Why they have to make guesses at this and not actually _know_ the
| reason? Based on my experience with ER visits there 's a form
| specifically for things removed from a child's nose: 1. raisin,
| 2. battery, 3. coin, 4. army man, 5. intelligence-enhancing
| crayon(s) 6. other
| stuartjohnson12 wrote:
| Upvoted for the optional plurality of "intelligence-enhancing
| crayon(s)"
| Guthur wrote:
| My thought exactly, I found it utterly incredulously that we
| some how have theses statistics with out any sort of object
| classification.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| The red ones give the most intelligence
| erickhill wrote:
| Let us not forget green peas, so we don't have to eat them.
| derefr wrote:
| Huh. Why raisins, but not other raisin-sized foods (e.g.
| sunflower seeds, Tic Tacs, etc)?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Kids often snack on little raisin boxes and their squishy
| nature make them easy to stuff.
| malfist wrote:
| My brother got a popcorn kernel stuck in his ear that
| required a doctor visit to remove. Kids are dumb
| edent wrote:
| Because, as they say in the paper, the data only say _a_
| foreign body was removed - not what sort it was.
|
| However, a different study showed that 75% of incidents in kids
| under 6 was due to coins.
|
| Given that the change appears to coincide with the UK's move to
| cashless, it is a reasonable assumption. Although they do note
| the limits of their conclusion.
|
| https://publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1308/rcsann.2024...
| bariswheel wrote:
| Terrible headline.
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(page generated 2025-03-29 23:00 UTC)