After the Spring Festival, a "20-minute child's eyeballs are dissolved!" The doctor said that every family has this thing, and parents must be highly vigilant! "Posts spread across the Internet.
The news said that it came from a pediatrician in Shanghai, to the effect that the media reported a "news": an 8-year-old child put the desiccant from food into a drink bottle with water, and the result was an explosion, and the child's eyeballs were dissolved. The post reminds parents to pay attention to desiccant, not only can not eat, but also to stay away from water and other liquids.
Is this true?
Desiccants are not food and toys
But not all of them explode
Judging by the post's reminder theme, there is indeed nothing wrong with it: the desiccant is neither food nor a toy, and cannot be eaten and played.
However, further investigation reveals that the post does not make the desiccant clear, as not all desiccants explode when exposed to water.
In life, common desiccants can be divided into two types: chemical desiccant and physical desiccant. The main raw materials of the former are calcium oxide (that is, "quicklime"), calcium sulfate, etc., which are dried by chemical reaction with water; the latter includes silica gel, activated alumina, activated carbon, etc., and is dried by physical adsorption of water.
Previously, in the food industry, chemical desiccants were widely used, but once calcium oxide encountered a large amount of water, a fierce chemical reaction occurred, releasing a large amount of heat and becoming a strong alkaline liquid. If a reaction occurs in a small container such as a beverage bottle, an explosion does occur.
Lime desiccant that reacts violently when exposed to water (Credit: cctv13 Screenshot of the program on November 14, 2014).
However, it is worth noting that due to the dangerous desiccant with calcium oxide as the main raw material, it has shown a trend of gradual elimination. Instead, it is a physical desiccant with silica gel as the main material.
Jiefang Daily Shangguan News reporter randomly removed some desiccants from different foods such as biscuits and nuts, and found that they were all silicone desiccants composed of small beads of silica, rather than powdered calcium oxide. These translucent silicone beads automatically adsorb moisture in the air without corrosiveness or toxicity.
As far as the desiccant viewed by the reporter was concerned, there was a reminder of "no food" on the packaging, but it did not indicate that it could not touch water. Because the silica gel desiccant is chemically stable, there will be no violent exothermic phenomenon after absorbing water.
The desiccant and oxygen scavenger removed by the reporter from different foods are not calcium oxides.
In addition, the reporter also found a "deoxidizer" in the nuts, and its outer packaging was marked with "inedible, not microwaved"; after opening, it was a black powder.
Originally, the "deoxidizer" takes iron powder as the main raw material, and its principle is to use iron powder to react with oxygen to remove the oxygen in the packaging, which helps to delay the oxidation and deterioration of food. Iron powder is metal, so it cannot be put in the microwave. However, iron powder does not react chemically with room temperature water.
It can be seen that it is necessary for parents to remind their children not to eat and play with desiccants and deoxidants. However, it is also inaccurate to exaggerate the dangers of desiccants and oxygen absorbers.
Doing popular science cannot make up rumors
It is worth mentioning that there is nothing wrong with reminding parents and children of the safety hazards of desiccant, but it does not mean that the relevant posts can be rumored or used sensational news to arouse attention.
Jiefang Daily Shangguan News found that the so-called "news" of "child eyeball melting" began to circulate as early as 2015, and the parties involved said that they were children in Shanghai and from Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Guangdong and other places.
However, in these so-called "news reports", there is neither the name of the hospital, nor the information of the doctor, nor even the exact name of the news organization, but only vaguely means "some local media expressed" and "some media said".
In addition, some posts used screenshots of "CCTV13 News".
After verification by the reporter, the screenshot was a message from 2014.
The news is indeed related to the chemical reaction of the desiccant in the water, and the person involved is a child in Jiangxi, who was treated in a hospital in Nanchang. According to reports at the time, the child's eyes were burned, and doctors were trying to treat them to avoid alkaline fluids penetrating the child's eyeballs. But doctors did not diagnose that "the child's eyeball has been dissolved."
The recent "news" footage quoted by some self-media is actually a news footage from 2014, when the news did not say that the child's eyeballs were dissolved.
It can be seen that the so-called "20 minutes of children's eyeball melting" news is likely to be the "result" of some self-media exaggerating previous news reports in order to popularize the safety knowledge of desiccant.
Perhaps, the starting point of some self-media is to remind the public of desiccant, and it is not advisable to make up stories and exaggerate the consequences.
Although the news similar to "eyeball melting" is eye-catching, its essence is still a rumor-mongering behavior that tampers with facts, which is no different from the "headline party" that blindly pursues traffic.
(Shanghai Network Rumors)