A 13-year-old boy in New Zealand swallowed up to 100 high-power magnets he bought online, forcing surgeons to remove tissue from his intestines, doctors said on Friday.
After suffering four days of abdominal pain, the unnamed teenager was taken to Tauranga hospital in the North Island. “He disclosed ingesting approximately 80 to 100 5x2mm high-power (neodymium) magnets about one week prior,” said a report by hospital doctors in the New Zealand Medical Journal.
The magnets, which have been banned in New Zealand since January 2013, were bought on the online shopping platform Temu, they said.
An X-ray showed the magnets had clumped together in four straight lines inside the child’s intestines. “These appeared to be in separate parts of bowel adhered together due to magnetic forces,” they said.
No date was given for the operation. Temu said it had launched an investigation to ensure it complies with safety requirements in New Zealand.
Doctors said the pressure of the magnets had caused necrosis – tissue death – in four areas of the boy’s small bowel and caecum, which is part of the large intestine. Surgeons operated to remove the dead tissue and retrieve the magnets and the child was able to return home after eight days in hospital.
“This case highlights not only the dangers of magnet ingestion but also the dangers of the online marketplace for our paediatric population,” said the authors of the paper, Binura Lekamalage, Lucinda Duncan-Were and Nicola Davis.
Surgery for ingestion of magnets can lead to complications later in life such as bowel obstruction, abdominal hernia and chronic pain, they said.
Temu said it was sorry to learn of the boy’s surgery. “We have launched an internal review and reached out to the authors of the New Zealand Medical Journal article to obtain more details about the case,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
“At this stage, we have not been able to confirm whether the magnets involved were purchased through Temu or identify the specific product listing. Nonetheless, our teams are reviewing relevant listings to ensure full compliance with local safety requirements.”
The Chinese-founded e-commerce company has come under criticism in markets including the EU for allegedly not doing enough to rid illegal products from its platform.
