Alerts
1) Bath Salts: Synthetic cathinones, otherwise known as "bath salts," are illegal drugs that can cause dangerous, and sometimes even permanent side effects. Some possible side effects of this drug include: paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, violent behavior, suicidal thoughts, seizures, chest pain, nausea, vomiting, and increased blood pressure and heart rate. The drug is most popular among 20-29 year olds, but poison centers have seen exposures in ages younger than 6 and older than 59.
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| Bath Salts Photo from: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/04/ six_chemicals_used_to_make_bat.html |
2) Hand Sanitizer: Although it seems harmless, hand sanitizer be be harmful and even deadly to children who ingest more than just a taste. This is because the amount of alcohol in hand sanitizer ranges from 40% to 95% and over 60% of it is ethyl alcohol which has a stronger alcohol concentration than most hard liquors. If too much hand sanitizer is ingested, one can experience alcohol poisoning. Common symptoms of alcohol poisoning include: confusion, vomiting and drowsiness, and in severe cases, respiratory arrest and death. It's important to keep hand sanitizers out of reach of children and only use dime-sized amounts in order to prevent potentially harmful exposure.
3) Laundry Detergent Packets: Young children should beware of laundry detergent packets. If swallowed, highly concentrated single-load liquid laundry detergent packets can cause excessive vomiting, sleepiness, wheezing, gasping, and other serious breathing problems. In some cases, there have been reports of corneal abrasions when the detergent gets into a child's eyes. Detergent containers should be kept closed stored out of reach of children to avoid any possible poisoning incidents.
4) Opioid (Narcotic) Pain Medications: Opioid-related deaths and opioid dependence have been increasing over the years. Opioids, or narcotics, are a subcategory of analgesics. These are pharmaceuticals that relieve pain by reducing the intensity of pain signals reaching the brain and affecting the brain areas controlling emotion, which decreases the effects of a painful stimulus. Each day, nearly 1,000 people are treated in emergency departments for misusing/abusing these drugs. Due to a recent increase in the acceptance of use of prescription opioids for the treatment of chronic, non-cancer pains such as back pain or osteoarthritis, the U.S. is now dealing with a prescription painkiller overdose epidemic.
5) Synthetic Cannabinoids: Synthetic Cannabinoids, also known as "synthetic marijuana" contains powerful chemicals called cannabimimetics and can cause dangerous health effects. Synthetic cannabinoids are not tested for safety, so users can never be exactly sure of what chemicals they are putting into their bodies. These drugs can be very addictive and can also cause live-threatening health effects such as as seizures, hallucinations, racing heartbeat, and suicidal thoughts to name a few.
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| Synthetic Cannabinoids Photo from: http://www.testcountry.org/ all-you-need-to-know-about-k2spice-and-synthetic-cannabinoids.htm |
7) Food and Mushroom Poisoning & Recalls: It is estimated by the CDC that each year, about 48 million people get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases. A foodborne illness, also known as food poisoning, is an illness caused by ingesting contaminated food. Infectious organisms such as parasites, viruses, bacteria, or other toxins are the most common cases of food poisoning. Food can be contaminated at any time during processing or production, or even at home if food is incorrectly cooked or handled. Common symptoms of food poisoning include abdominal cramps, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, upset stomach , dehydration, and fever. Severe cases can cause long-term health problems or death. Safe food preparation and storage is essential. Some recent food recalls include:
King's Pastry, located in Ontario, Canada recalling several cakes because the products contained tree nut allergens that were not listed on the product labels --D.F. Stauffer Biscuit Co., Inc. recalling one specific best by date of 32 oz. Original Animal Cracker because they may be packaged with other cookies that contain mild powder
8) Current Annual Report Highlights: In 2014, someone called a poison center every 11 seconds. Poison centers managed 2.9 million cases, about 2.2 million of which were about people coming into contact with dangerous or potentially dangerous substances. Over 27,000 exposures took place at a school. However, fewer than 10,000 calls to poison centers were made from schools. 21% of exposure calls to poison centers came from health care facilities.
For emergency, information, & prevention call The American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC): 1-800-222-1222
In 2015, America's 55 poison centers received over 2.8 million calls. Of those about 2.2 million of which were about people coming into contact with dangerous or potentially dangerous substances. The rest were calls for information. Photo from: http://www.aapcc.org/
Current Annual Report 2015
Age & gender distributions:
- children <6 (47%)
- older children 6-12 (6%)
- teens 13-19 (8%)
- adults 20-59 (26%)
- older adults 60+ (8%)
- unknown age (5%)
Male predominance among cases involving children less than or equal to 12 years of age. This gender distribution was reversed in teenagers and adults, with females comprising the majority of reported exposures.
Chronicity:
Most human exposures, 1,889,845 (87.2%) were acute cases compared to 953 acute cases among the 1831 fatalities (52.1%). Chronic exposures comprised 2.05% (44,369) of all human exposures. Acute-on-chronic exposures numbered 202,680 (9.35%).
Reasons for exposure:
Most human exposures were unintentional (78.4%) including: unintentional general (52.5%), therapeutic error (12.7%), and unintentional misuse (6.03%).
Scenarios:
The most common scenarios for all ages of the total 275,979 therapeutic errors included: wrong medication taken or given (16.9%), inadvertent double-dosing (30.1%), other incorrect dose (14.6%), doses given/taken too close together (11.3%), and inadvertent exposure to someone else's medication (8.48%).
Reason by age:
17.6% of human exposures were intentional. In 11.7% of cases, suicidal intent was suspected. In 2.62% intentional misuse was suspected. In 2.38% intentional abuse was suspected. There were more unintentional exposures than intentional exposures in all age groups with the exception of ages 12-19 years. Of the 1256 reported fatalities with RCF 1-3, the main reason reported for children under or equal to 5 years of age was unintentional while most of the fatalities in adults over or equal to 20 years of age were intentional.
Route of exposure:
- Ingestion (83.6%)
- Dermal (6.96%)
- Inhalation/nasal (6.32%)
- Ocular (4.23%)
For the 1256 exposure-related fatalities:
- Ingestion (80.2%)
- Inhalation/nasal (9.39%)
- Unknown (8.84%)
- Parenteral (6.29%)
Note that each exposure case may have more than one route.
Top substances:
The top 25 substances that are most frequently involved in human exposures are:
(listed from highest to lowest percent of exposure)
- Analgesics
- Cleaning Substances (household)
- Cosmetics/Personal Care Products
- Sedative/Hypnotics/Antipsychotics
- Antidepressants
- Antihistamines
- Cardiovascular Drugs
- Foreign Bodies/Toys/Miscellaneous
- Pesticides
- Topical Preparations
- Alcohols
- Stimulants & Street Drugs
- Vitamins
- Cold & Cough Preparations
- Anticonvulsants
- Antimicrobials
- Hormones & Hormone Antagonists
- Bites & Envenomations
- Gastrointestinal Preparations
- Dietary Supplements/Herbals/Homeopathic
- Plants
- Chemicals
- Fumes/Gases/Vapors
- Other/Unknown Non-drug Substances
- Hydrocarbons
