Photographic Chemicals

What the CPSC Data Shows

Photographic Chemicals (CPSC product code 926, in the Home Workshop Tools & Equipment category) generate an estimated 54 emergency-room visits every year in the United States, adding up to roughly 430 ER-treated injuries across the 17-year span from 2005 to 2021. PlainSafety derives a danger score of 29/100 for this category (low risk), combining raw injury volume, demographic reach, severity of outcome, and multi-year trend. The five-year trajectory shows that injury counts are rising by about 280% over the last five years, with the busiest year on record being 2009 (107 estimated ER visits) and the quietest 2016 (15 estimated visits).

The single most common ER diagnosis for photographic chemicals is poisoning to the all parts body, accounting for approximately 91 visits across the 20-year NEISS window, followed by other to the eyeball (79 cases). The 15-24 age group absorbs the largest share of injuries, about 265 cases over the NEISS window, and males appear slightly more often than the opposite sex in that cohort. Severity outcomes from the NEISS disposition field show that 0.0% of ER visits involving this product end in hospital admission or transfer.

Beyond the hospital-sampled NEISS projections, this page also aggregates 0 consumer incident reports filed directly on SaferProducts.gov, plus 10 anonymized ER narratives - together forming a layered picture of how photographic chemicals fail in real households. Every figure on this page comes from CPSC-published data: NEISS projects national estimates from a probability sample of about 100 U.S. hospital emergency departments, while SaferProducts.gov collects voluntary reports from consumers, manufacturers, and clinicians. The danger score, trend indicators, and demographic breakdowns update automatically when CPSC releases a new yearly NEISS file, which is why this page is dated 2021-12-31. For regulatory context, consult CPSC recall notices and the SaferProducts.gov public database linked below.