John Daniel, the person behind the Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group, coauthored a medical case report about an occlupanid “anchored in” a person’s colon. from the case report, published in 2011 (superscript numbers removed):
People older than 60 years of age who have either partial or full dentures seem to be at particular risk for the accidental ingestion of these devices. In five cases, the patient was known to be edentulous [having no teeth]. As the population ages, small bowel perforation secondary to ingestion of such clips may occur with increasing frequency. The call has been made for elimination or redesign of the clips to prevent their ingestion, make them less likely to hook into the mucosa (possibly by employing a spherical design), have them made out of digestible material, or simply incorporate radio-opaque compounds in the plastic to enable their identification in the gastrointestinal tract by conventional radiography. The path of eradication has already been taken in the UK where plastic clips have been replaced by tape for safety reasons.
Larisa M. Lehmer, Bruce D. Ragsdale, John Daniel, Edwin Hayashi, and Robert Kvalstad, “Plastic bag clip discovered in partial colectomy accompanying proposal for phylogenic plastic bag clip classification”, BMJ Case Reports (2011), https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr.02.2011.3869
from one of the references that Lehmer et al. 2011 cites:
These cases, combined with those previously reported (Table 1), suggest that people in their 60s who have either partial or full dentures (9 of the 10 patients for whom dental status was known) are particularly at risk for accidentally swallowing plastic bread-bag clips. We postulate that decreased oral sensation associated with wearing dentures increases susceptibility to swallowing these devices. Data from the current series and the literature have not identified cognitive deficits or dementia as a factor in swallowing plastic bread-bag clips. The role of visual acuity in accidental ingestion of the clips is unknown.