(Portable camping stoves continue to cause burns)

Inadequate instructions on how to change gas canisters on camping stoves is resulting in unnecessary injuries, write Adrian Richards and colleagues from the Odstock Centre for Burns, Plastic and Maxillofacial Surgery at Salisbury District General Hospital in this week's BMJ. Based on experiences with nine patients that the Centre treated during the summer of last year, the authors say that the design of camping stove gas canisters is dangerous, as they do not incorporate a fail-safe mechanism to prevent the leakage of explosive butane gas. The authors claim that despite issuing a warning more than thirteen years ago the design of the canisters has not been adapted and injuries are still being sustained uncessarily.

Contact:

Adrian Richards, Specialist Registrar, Odstock Centre for Burns, Plastic and Maxillofacial Surgery at Salisbury District General Hospital, Salisbury

Inadequate instructions on how to change gas canisters on camping stoves is resulting in unnecessary injuries, write Adrian Richards and colleagues from the Odstock Centre for Burns, Plastic and Maxillofacial Surgery at Salisbury District General Hospital in this week's BMJ. Based on experiences with nine patients that the Centre treated during the summer of last year, the authors say that the design of camping stove gas canisters is dangerous, as they do not incorporate a fail-safe mechanism to prevent the leakage of explosive butane gas. The authors claim that despite issuing a warning more than thirteen years ago the design of the canisters has not been adapted and injuries are still being sustained uncessarily.

Contact:

Adrian Richards, Specialist Registrar, Odstock Centre for Burns, Plastic and Maxillofacial Surgery at Salisbury District General Hospital, Salisbury

or

Peter Shakespeare