Bottom Line: Poison Center Educators Are Your 24/7 Partners

By Rose Ann G. Soloway, RN, BSN, MSEd, DABAT
Clinical Toxicologist
National Capital Poison Center
February 2008

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 2.4 million times a year, poison centers answer calls like these:

• Fifteen children at my day care center ate berries they found in the yard.
  
• I bought a purse at a yard sale. My granddaughter ate some small green pills she found inside.
  
• A soldier swallowed plastic explosive in a suicide attempt.
  
• By mistake, I took my husband’s medicine and he took mine.
  
• I was in the basement doing laundry and was bitten by a snake.
  
• I just learned that antifreeze leaked into our office building’s drinking water today. Most people have gone home for the weekend, and some people who work here are pregnant.

Poison center staff includes board-certified medical and clinical toxicologists, as well as nurses and pharmacists who are nationally certified as specialists in poison information. Their expertise includes drug overdoses, household product exposures, drugs of abuse, chemical weapons agents, environmental poisons, workplace chemicals, plants and mushrooms, and snake and spider bites. Sixty-one poison centers serve the U.S. They are all reached by the same 24-hour number: 1-800-222-1222. Calls are routed automatically and answered by local experts.

When comprehensive emergency medical services systems were first outlined in the 1970s, poison centers were included because of their specific expertise, available by phone. Today, about 75 percent of poison center calls are managed entirely over the telephone, freeing EMS personnel for responses that require their specific experience and training.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, poisoning is the second leading cause of injury-related death (2004). About half of poison exposures managed by poison centers occur in young children. About a third of cases, and the majority of deaths, occur in adults.

Preventing injury, illness, and death from poisoning is important throughout the life cycle.

• Young children are at risk because of normal growth and development: they explore, climb, and put everything into their mouths. Parents and caregivers must be vigilant to avoid errors when giving medications to children.
• Dangers for pre-teens include experimentation with inhalants, illegal drugs, and alcohol. As they progress into teen years, responsibility for self-medication and exposure to workplace chemicals may add to their personal risk factors.
• Adults are poisoned by inappropriate use of medicines, household products, and workplace chemicals. Drug abuse and suicide attempts add to the high numbers of poisoning victims in this age group.
• Seniors are at risk because, as people get older and take more medicines, the possibility of drug reactions and interactions climbs.
• Carbon monoxide is a danger to everyone who breathes it in.

Poison center educators offer materials promoting awareness of the 24-hour poison center phone number, 1-800-222-1222, such as phone stickers and magnets. Other materials address poison prevention measures appropriate to local poisoning hazards and the local community. Soon, as a result of a Home Safety Council initiative funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration, poison prevention materials for adults with low English reading ability will be available.

For materials and advice about incorporating poison prevention messages into your community outreach, call your local poison center at 1-800-222-1222 and ask to speak to the educator. Also, call your poison center to learn about training opportunities for you, your colleagues and your constituents.

Rose Ann Soloway is Clinical Toxicologist with the National Capital Poison Center. She is board-certified in clinical toxicology by the American Board of Applied Toxicology. Ms. Soloway has been chair of the Poison Prevention Week Council, a trustee of the Alliance for Consumer Education, and served as a member of the USP Expert Committee on Clinical Toxicology and Substance Abuse. Previously, she was Associate Director for External Affairs and Member Services for the American Association of Poison Control Centers.