Infant dies after ingesting detergent pod 
 
 The 7-month-old boy who died after reportedly ingesting a concentrated detergent pod could be the first such death in the nation. 
 
 If confirmed, his could be the first reported death in the nation tied to the detergent packets, though so far this year alone, more than 5,000 children have been sickened by them, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers. 
 
 A 7-month-old boy died after eating a laundry detergent packet in Kissimmee last week — highlighting the dangers poison-control officials have been warning of for more than a year as the products have become wildly popular among consumers. 
 
 Kissimmee authorities responded Friday afternoon to a battered-women's shelter where the child's mother reported she had placed detergent pods — handed out by the shelter — inside a laundry basket on the bed where her son was sleeping. 
 
 She stepped away, and when she returned, the boy had eaten one packet of the highly concentrated detergent and was starting on a second one, according to Stacie Miller, a Kissimmee police spokeswoman. 
 
 "I didn't realize how potent those things are," Miller said. 
 
 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in an October 2012 report that "children might be attracted to the pods because their colorful appearance and size are similar to candy." 
 
 The soft, colorful and squishy exterior of the laundry packets could easily be mistaken by babies or toddlers who get their hands on them when their parents are doing laundry, officials said. 
 
 The Kissimmee infant, Michael Williams, was coughing when emergency responders arrived but was alert and breathing, according to a police incident report. Shelter staff had helped the distraught mother remove the empty All Mighty Pacspacket and clear phlegm from the infant's mouth, according to the report. 
 
 The baby was transported to Osceola Regional Medical Center, where his condition worsened and he died. 
 
 The Florida Department of Children and Families confirmed Michael ingested the laundry packet but said it will take weeks before medical examiners can make an official ruling on the cause of death. 
 
 "The death of little Michael is a tragedy," DCF spokeswoman Terri Durdaller wrote in an email to the Orlando Sentinel. "It reminds all of us as parents the dangers of leaving household cleaning supplies around our little ones." 
 
 According to Florida Department of Health data, 20 children in Florida die each year on average from accidental poisoning — but the types of poisoning are not specified. 
 
 According to AAPCC, 5,753 kids 5 and younger have been exposed to single-load laundry packets from Jan. 1 through July 31 of this year. That number is almost as high as the total for 2012 — which was 6,231. 
 
 The nonprofit organization tracks fatalities caused by poisoning but would not say Thursday whether it has documented any deaths related to detergent packets, spokeswoman Loreeta Canton said. ||||| A 7-month-old Florida boy has died after swallowing a candy-colored liquid laundry packet, raising concerns about the access that young children have to the increasingly popular products. 
 
 The Florida Poison Information Center says the boy's death may be the first in the U.S. involving young children who were exposed to chemicals in concentrated laundry packets since May 2012, when the center first received an exposure report. The center says it has received almost 300 exposure reports so far this year. 
 
 "With young children, any household product is likely to end up in their mouth," said Dr. Cynthia Lewis-Younger, the center's medical director. Most exposures in Florida involved children tasting or licking the concentrated liquid packets, which don't cause children to become seriously ill. 
 
 "Parents know that things in the house can be dangerous and they call for advice. And (in) many of those cases we can reassure parents," she said. 
 
 The American Association of Poison Control Centers said national data for this year had not yet been compiled, but that this kind of poisoning death had not been reported in prior years. 
 
 The boy was taken from a shelter for abused women to the hospital Friday afternoon "in some distress" and pronounced dead about an hour later, said Kissimmee Police spokesman Capt. Warren Shepard. 
 
 Police declined to release further information, citing the ongoing investigation. No charges had been filed. 
 
 The Florida Department of Children and Families said it had prior history with the family of the boy, Michael Williams, but officials declined comment. 
 
 "While we have the cause of death, we just don't know if it was as a result of abuse or neglect, which prevents us at this point in the investigation from opening the records or giving out any detailed information about our involvement with the family," DCF said in a statement Thursday. 
 
 Police and child welfare officials have not identified the mother, citing privacy concerns. 
 
 "We continue to work with law enforcement as the investigation moves forward into the circumstances surrounding the poisoning," the DCF statement said. "The death of little Michael is a tragedy. It reminds all of us as parents of the dangers of leaving household cleaning supplies around our little ones." 
 
 More than 5,700 children under the age of 5 were exposed to the chemicals in the concentrated packets so far this year, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers. There were no reported deaths before 2012, the most recent records available and when the bright blue-and-red packets first came on the market. 
 
 "People are not listening to the warnings," said Bruce Ruck with the New Jersey Poison Center. "Last year at about this time, there were quite a few issues relating to this," he said of children swallowing the single-dose packs, with many of them ending up on ventilators and in intensive care units. 
 
 Hundreds of children across the U.S. have required hospitalization for ingesting the chemicals in the packets _ suffering loss of consciousness, excessive vomiting, drowsiness, throat swelling, and difficulty breathing. 
 
 The Procter & Gamble Co., makers of the orange-and-purple Tide Pods, has a Safe Home campaign to help "educate consumers on the correct use and storage of household cleaning and fabric care products." The company also rolled out redesigned packaging this year, including an opaque container and double-latch lid that is child-resistant. 
 
 "We are seeing more consistent warning labels and some companies move to opaque packaging," said Scott Wolfson, spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission which "has been working on this issue for quite some time." Commission Chairman Inez Moore Tenenbaum has called on the industry to take steps to make the packets safer _ and less appealing to children _ and to develop a comprehensive safety standard.
– A Florida baby might be the first in the nation to die from ingesting a packet of laundry detergent, reports the Orlando Sentinel. The 7-month-old Kissimmee boy ate the packet after plucking it out of a laundry basket and immediately went into distress. Michael Williams died later at the hospital, though it will take weeks to confirm the cause of death. The child and his mother had been staying at a shelter for battered women. Kids can confuse the laundry pods for candy, and awareness of the danger has been growing for a while now. (Procter & Gamble changed its design last year.) Nearly 6,000 young kids have been sickened this year alone, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, but this would be the first death reported if confirmed. "People are not listening to the warnings," one poison-control official tells AP.