PHILADELPHIA — The number of children killed or injured by falling television sets appears to have risen even as more consumers replace their clunky old TVs with lighter flat-panel screens, studies suggest.
The reason for the rise isn’t clear but could result from traditional TV sets becoming heavier and, an industry official suggests, households choosing a flat-panel screen for their main TV and placing old sets on rickety furniture in other rooms.
A team from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio reviewed data from 100 emergency rooms and estimated that about 14,700 furniture-related injuries occurred each year between 1990 and 2007 — almost half because of TV sets, the most common article involved in the accidents — and resulted in about 300 deaths.
The research, published in October in the journal Clinical Pediatrics, showed that the number and rate of injuries to youngsters from falling furniture increased significantly over the period. The rate generally rose from 18.8 per 100,000 people in 1990 to 22.9 in 2007, peaking at 25.7 in 2004.
A similar report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission last year estimated 180 deaths associated with appliance, furniture and television instability and tip-overs from 2000 to 2006; 87 of the deaths involved televisions.
