Thread: News: Study: Kids sickened playing video games after Ike

Its the end of the world as we know it...... GAME ON ! ! !

See.... gaming CAN be bad for you

Study: Kids sickened playing video games after Ike
By CINDY GEORGE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
May 27, 2009, 1:50PM

Many children treated for carbon monoxide poisoning in the powerless days after Hurricane Ike took ill while playing video games, researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston found.

In the small sample of cases where researchers could determined why families were using gasoline-powered electric generators, which emit carbon monoxide, 75 percent of children poisoned were gaming. The findings are published in this week’s Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Gaming as a post-disaster necessity is new for emergency physicians, convincing some that future generator safety messages should be directed to children.

“We usually have patients arriving in the emergency department with carbon monoxide poisoning because they tried to keep food fresh, run a fan or home air conditioner, but not power electronic gadgets,” Dr. Caroline Fife, a UT associate professor of medicine, said in a news release.

All of the patients studied were treated at Memorial Hermann — Texas Medical Center’s hyperbaric oxygen treatment chamber, which uses pressure to force 100 percent oxygen into the bodies of people with carbon monoxide poisoning.

Of 37 patients treated for carbon monoxide poisoning after the storm, 20 were younger than 20. In nine of the those cases, researchers were able to determine why a generator was in use and found that 75 percent were being used to run video games.

Generators should never be used in a confined area. Carbon monoxide from the devices can cause sudden illness. Symptoms include headache, nausea, dizziness and weakness. Extended exposure to the odorless fumes can cause death.

:3 Honestly... and people wonder why I only get news from the BBC.

I just think it was funny since it is still relatively fresh in my mind. Most of the city didn't have power for quite awhile, oh, bright idea, we can game if we have generators.

Maybe it was a parenting move? Keep the kids busy and out from under your feet?

Or is it the kids are so addicted to their little game things now that if they didn't get a fix, they'd start going into withdrawals?

I had one person here at work, no power in his neighborhood, so he'd be bringing his kids game systems to work to charge them up during the day so they could play at night.

I'm with Arreo.

What most likely happened is that parents used generators for typical reasons - save food, run water wells, etc. The kids gamed as a matter of convenience.

If the story went like the article suggest then there would have been different symptoms - parents jamming game controllers in their kids mouths to shut them the hell up while they worked on mitigating storm damage.

Correlation does not equal causation is one of my largest pet peeves ever. That and the incorrect use or interpretation of statistics to try and prove your opinion.. Which actually tangentially relates to correlation/causation.