A 7-month-old boy died after eating a laundry detergent packet in Kissimmee last week — highlighting the dangers poison-control officials have been warning of for more than a year as the products have become wildly popular among consumers. The American Association of Poison Control Centers said national data for this year had not yet been compiled, but that this kind of poisoning death had not been reported in prior years. Kissimmee authorities responded Friday afternoon to a battered-women's shelter where the child's mother reported she had placed detergent pods — handed out by the shelter — inside a laundry basket on the bed where her son was sleeping. The Florida Department of Children and Families confirmed Michael ingested the laundry packet but said it will take weeks before medical examiners can make an official ruling on the cause of death. "The death of little Michael is a tragedy," DCF spokeswoman Terri Durdaller wrote in an email to the Orlando Sentinel. It reminds all of us as parents of the dangers of leaving household cleaning supplies around our little ones." If confirmed, his could be the first reported death in the nation tied to the detergent packets, though so far this year alone, more than 5,000 children have been sickened by them, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
– A Florida baby might be the first in the nation to die from ingesting a packet of laundry detergent, reports the Orlando Sentinel. The 7-month-old Kissimmee boy ate the packet after plucking it out of a laundry basket and immediately went into distress. Michael Williams died later at the hospital, though it will take weeks to confirm the cause of death. The child and his mother had been staying at a shelter for battered women. Kids can confuse the laundry pods for candy, and awareness of the danger has been growing for a while now. (Procter & Gamble changed its design last year.) Nearly 6,000 young kids have been sickened this year alone, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, but this would be the first death reported if confirmed. "People are not listening to the warnings," one poison-control official tells AP.