Health Canada finds Wire-bristle BBQ brush incident reports more than double

A Health Canada risk-assessment report found the number of reported incidents of bristles coming off a grill-cleaning brush has climbed to 40. In 28 of those cases, a person was injured after ingesting a wire bristle.

Guelph General Hospital surgeon Dr. Leigh Bishop who has had to treat patients injured after swallowing  wire bristles from a barbecue brush says Health Canada should be moving more quickly to take the brushes off the market.

The number of incidents related to wire-bristle barbecue brushes reported to Health Canada more than doubled over the summer, but the regulator is still weighing what to do about the problem.

Bishop said in his most recent case, a patient went to the hospital's emergency department after being ill for a few days. The patient had ingested a wire bristle that travelled all the way through the stomach, and "just short of getting to the colon, it perforated the small bowel."

He urges Health Canada to ban sales of wire bristle brushes.

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