[SystemSafety] Children as a causal factor in major accidents

[Mike Ellims]

Alvery Grazebrook  raised the following issue:

 

“Slightly off to the side, but there are related ethical problems. In medicine, drug testing for children is particularly difficult because of the ethical problems of running drug-safety trials – the children can’t give informed consent.”

 

This is not the whole story. For many drugs (but not all) pediatric extension studies will take place which replicate the original phase one safety trials (efficacy having been assumed to have been determined) to establish “safe” doses.  Safe of course being relative as most if not all drugs are also toxins. In all cases the consent of the parents is required and in addition the understanding of the child has to be established,  and that they agree.

 

Some drugs will never be undergo such trials as they are  primarily targeted at issues of the aged and infirm (such as myself) treating conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, hypertension (and if it doesn’t work; penile erectile dysfunction and jet lag in hamsters ;-).

 

Cheers.

 

 

From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of GRAZEBROOK, Alvery N
Sent: 02 October 2014 09:37
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Children as a causal factor in major accidents

 

Slightly off to the side, but there are related ethical problems. In medicine, drug testing for children is particularly difficult because of the ethical problems of running drug-safety trials – the children can’t give informed consent. 

 

If I understand the situation correctly, this causes problems to Doctors in their prescribing, because there are many areas of treatment where there are no approved drugs for children under 12. This leaves them in the unenviable position where they have a drug in their hand, that has demonstrated efficacy for adults, and they don’t know whether it is safe to use on a child, what side-effects to look for, or what dose might be effective. If they do go ahead, they can be accused of using the drug “off list”, and if not, of failing to provide effective treatment. 

 

To be clear, I’m not an expert in this, I just know a few GP’s. 

 

Cheers,

            Alvery

 

** These opinions are my own, not necessarily those of my employer. 

 

 

 

From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of DREW Rae
Sent: 01 October 2014 3:07 PM
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Children as a causal factor in major accidents

 

Reporting back to the list because a lot of the ideas were sent directly to me. Thank you to Peter, John, Patrick, Philip, Mike, Brian, and Alan. 

The replies covered a what seems to be an interesting space:

·         Child is particularly vulnerable because of their size and body mass. This is important in analysing the effects of exposure, but also with drug safety, medical devices, poisons, and aggressive animals.

·         Child is incompatible with personal safety protection provided for adults (seat belts on cars, lap belts on planes, life jackets, air bags). Using the adult safety equipment may be more dangerous than no equipment, with the added concern of providing something appropriate and accessible for children. 

·         Child equipment incompatible with the system (child leashes stuck in elevator doors, strollers/prams stuck on railway crossings)

·         Child security incompatible with safety, or system security incompatible with child safety (mostly involving children locking themselves into spaces or locking adults out of spaces)

·         Child incompatible with system safety protection (unable to read warnings, unable to activate alarms, unable to recognise "obvious" danger because it doesn't look dangerous)

·         Child as a special case of misuse, because unaware of the consequences of their actions (misuse of alarms, fiddling with controls, disabling autopilot, releasing handbrake)

·         Child unable to report danger to themselves or others (secondary drowning, leaving system in an unsafe state)

 

Fortunately from a safety point of view, only one major accident (Aeroflot 583) was mentioned. I suspect I might find something more once I look at these specific issues. 

Have I/we missed anything important? Is anyone interested in collaborating to take this a bit further? I think there'd be something interesting to say by looking at this through a few of the major safety models. All of those issues could be characterised as child-induced control loop failures. Children have different mental models, different capacity for control, different feedback etc. They could also be a scope issue for safety cases. "Have you thought about children" could undercut various types of evidence and argument. Even in a simple barrier model children could distort the effectiveness and side-effects of barriers. 

Regards,
Drew




My safety podcast: disastercast.co.uk

My mobile (until October 2nd): +44 7783 446 814

My mobile (from October 6th): 0450 161 361

 

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 9:43 AM, DREW Rae <d.rae at griffith.edu.au> wrote:

Hi folks,

I've had an interesting request for a DisasterCast episode focussing on children and major accidents. 

1) Can anyone suggest a major accident where the presence or behavior of children have been a causal factor? I'm looking specifically for where they increased or determined the likelihood of the accident, not just accidents with large numbers of children. 

2) Can anyone suggest (in public-domain terms) ways children have had to be treated as a special case in safety analysis?

Off the top of my head I can think of children as a special group in population dose-response modelling for chemical releases, and the debate about child restraints in aircraft.

[Didn't want to send a separate email to the whole list, but a public thank you to John and Nancy for help with my last request re Columbia]. 

Drew




My safety podcast: disastercast.co.uk

My mobile (until October 2nd): +44 7783 446 814

My mobile (from October 6th): 0450 161 361

 

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