Zen Magnets: 6 Years of Battle End in Victory

Re:Zen Magnets: 6 Years of Battle End in Victory by opencl on Thursday June 21, 2018 @09:08PM (#17370492)

'Subjects from 0-17 years old were included using a primary search term for diagnosis of “ingested object” from the time period of 2002-2015. Cases of ingested objects were classified as “suspected magnet ingestion” (SMI) if the term “magnet” appeared anywhere in the narrative section of the database. Researchers then identified specific characteristics of ingested magnets for descriptions related to rare-earth metals or small size. Specific inclusionary terms for small, round size/shape included: small, tiny, ≤1cm, battery-like, marble, bead, BB, ball, sphere, round, and circular. Inclusion terms for multiple were: multiple, > 1, or the plural “magnets.” '

This has got to have an obscenely high false positive rate.

When the ban was being proposed the CPSC's claim was "at least a dozen" from 2009-2012.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/07/feds-sue-to-take-zen-ma...

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Re:Zen Magnets: 6 Years of Battle End in Victory by JackCh on Thursday June 21, 2018 @10:07PM (#17370737)

~100,000 narratives to classify and they couldn't even be bothered to have a couple interns spend a few weeks reviewing suspected narratives? All it would take is to present the suspected narrative to a human with the instances of "magnet" highlighted so the human could quickly determine if the sentence mentioning "magnet" was actually talking about one being eaten. Since when does a dumb database query with next to no diligence even qualify as science? If this is truly a matter of saving the lives of children, then surely the expense could be spared.

This whole thing is insulting.

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