June 29, 2021 • 51 mins
Poison control centers are one of those things you don’t think about until you need it. With all the poisons in our homes you very well may someday. When you do there is a cadre of toxicological specialists ready to oversee the process of saving your life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles w Chuck, Brian and Jerry's over here,
and this is stuff you should know. Yeah, how are
(00:25):
you doing? Man? I'm great. I'm have not been poisoned yet.
I have no need to get on the phone and
call an expert at this point. Luckily, my daughter has
never been poisoned, although that's a big concern for parents. Yeah,
no joke here, No, not joking, nothing funny about poisoned children,
(00:47):
unless you're talking about little young Brett Michael's. He was
he was a stitch in a cut up. Oh oh
oh wow, a little ricky rocket. I was confused, Um, tickled,
and then disappointed, all within like half of a second. Oh,
I thought you were gonna stay disappointed in the joke,
because that's the fourth stage of recovery. I thought it
(01:09):
was great. Maybe like a month from now, I'll be like,
you know, that jokes about poison wasn't that great? But
who knows, maybe I'll also be laughing about it years later.
For example, UM, I watched uh F the other day
for the first time in a little while. I haven't
seen it, and just today, out of the blue apropos
of nothing, I cracked myself up thinking about one of
(01:32):
the jokes. So, uh, there's a segment about Conan the librarian.
Somebody asks for a book on astronomy, and Conan grabs
the guy and lifts him up by his shirt and
he goes, don't you know the Dewey decimal system was
in it? It was a really good approximation of Arnold.
(01:52):
For a second, I thought it was Bruce Campbell and
I actually looked on the credits and it's not. But um,
it looks exactly like Bruce Campbell doing Arnold Schwarzenegger. You
know what I watched the other day for the I
think first time ever did we talk about this pumping iron? Yeah,
I've never watched it. I think we might have already
spoken about this, though I did on the show even
(02:16):
maybe No, no, no, definitely not within weeks. No, no, unless,
like my brain is sloshing around, probably has everyone out
there's going, Yes, Josh, you mentioned it three episodes ago,
and you're both stupid. It rings a bell that you
did mention it, but it was not weeks ago. I
think you're confusing your other podcast, Movie Crush. I don't
think so, because one of them is good and one
(02:37):
of them is you're crazy cutting up. But you're talking
about a movie and it couldn't possibly have been mentioned
on the movie podcast. Is what your position is? Maybe
it was okay, but Movie Crushes the good podcast. Oh well,
I resubmit my you're crazy. I'm sorry. I just poisoned you. Yeah,
(03:04):
and a million listeners, So maybe we should just get
going on this. I thought this was really interesting. I
think we should take an ad break. No. So yeah,
it was interesting and it wasn't like based on anything
but curiosity. Like I realized that I had no idea
how poison control centers worked, Like like you, I have
(03:24):
never had occasion to call one. Luckily, um, but they're there,
and it's kind of like a really great thing that
they're there and that they are, um there to keep
scared parents from you know, freaking out because their kids
ate something weird or their dog ate something weird, or
you know, they ate something weird. Um, and to say
(03:47):
basically say like no, you need to get to a hospital.
And not only that, I'm gonna help you throughout this
process of going to the hospital and staying at the hospital,
because poison control centers are like the most hands on
remote medical discipline there is. Yeah, and if it was
a hundred and change years ago, you'd be lucky if
(04:08):
whatever you accidentally drank in your house even has ingredients
listed on it. And if it did have ingredients, you'd
be lucky if they were accurate or truthful, because no
one cared and you wouldn't be able to call anyone
to help. And if you went to your local, you know,
community doctor, good luck if they're even available a hundred
(04:29):
and ten years ago. And if they were, they'd probably
be like, jeez, I don't really know what to do
except maybe try and make you vomit. Yeah, nothing more
than a two bit bumpkin was what you had for
a doctor back then, you drinking sody pop. Yeah, exactly,
the sassafras um. But and and so you might say, well, like,
what is a hundred years ago matter? Why not further back?
(04:52):
That's a really good question, And the answer that is
that poison control is a fairly recent invention, not because
people just thought of it, but because we didn't really
need it before, because we didn't really have poisons around
us prior to about the Industrial Revolution, Like the closest
thing you had to poison was a snake that made
(05:13):
its way into your house. You definitely didn't open your
your cabinet beneath the sink, probably because you didn't have
a sink, but also even if you had a sink,
you didn't have like household chemicals at your disposal until
industrialization came around. Yeah, I mean before that, there might
have been you know, you could extract some poison type
things from plants and maybe got something at a at
(05:35):
a traveling kind of snake oil situation, but it wasn't
like they were on the general store shelves all over
the country and then later stores, like you said, until
the Industrial Revolution when we said, hey, it turns out
that we can use chemicals. Uh, and they they can
be very handy. They are dangerous, but I mean, who
would who would drink a bottle of floor cleaner? People
(05:58):
know better than that, Right, We don't have to tell that,
do we You're right exactly? Um? They said, actually, yes,
we totally do. And I saw actually a comparison on
a poisoned website that's still today. People apparently get poisoned,
including adults, from accidentally drinking things that they think are
other safer things. And they had bottles of stuff next
(06:20):
to bottles of others, like food, and you're like, wow,
that really actually does bear a passing resemblance, Like pine
salt looks a lot like apple juice when you put
it next to a bottle of apple juice. And there's
a brand of apple juice that looks roughly like the
pine salt label. Yeah, it's not so I think you
(06:40):
could drink um. The most you would do is probably
embarrass yourself. But I see things that look like toothpaste
a lot that you would not want to put on
a toothbrush and put in your mouth. What are you
hanging around with that looks like toothpaste that you wouldn't
want to brush your teeth with? Well, I mean there's
all sorts of I mean, like lubes you looving en
up like calamine, and you know, I feel like I've
(07:03):
seen some other creams and things that look you know,
because that's a it's an obviously a good way to
carry it, toothpaste like thing, and it is an old
tube like that, but a lot of them look alike.
Is my point. I see, So do you have to
be like, don't brush your teeth with this reminder to
use a children's toothpaste so it has big dinosaurs on it.
(07:24):
I think it wasn't so much back in the day.
Like now today, there's like basically no excuse because we
spent the last hundred years being um inculcated into the
idea that there are a lot of dangerous things in
our everyday lives. But you know, back in the day,
this was all brand new to people and they just
didn't know. Um. Sometimes manufacturers actually didn't know, and they
(07:48):
found out the hard way. And because people were suffering
from this, it was obvious that there was a need
for people to say, Okay, we need to start studying
these things a little more. And a lot of the
um great great meaning like really fantastic and triumphant government
bureaucracies here in the United States arose from protecting like
(08:10):
everyday people from the stuff that they were eating his
food or using his medicines, like things you're supposed to
be able to trust. They couldn't trust back then. So
entire sub disciplines of the medical profession kind of developed
to protect people from those things. Yeah, it was mid
delayed eighteen hundreds when people started saying, hey, this is
(08:31):
a problem, this is an issue. I think a lot
of journalists did great work early on to expose a
lot of this stuff, a lot of these dangers, and say,
you know, some of these medicines can be really dangerous.
Then a guy came along named Dr Harvey Wiley. He
ran the Bureau of Chemistry, which proceeded the f d A,
and he had a group called the Poison Squad, who
(08:51):
were these healthy young men who would who would poison themselves.
They would eat chemicals to see what happened. Because, as
you'll see kind of throughout this whole epiodisode, much of
the work of poison control, from the very beginning all
the way up through today is just simply categorizing and
listing out things that make people sick and exactly how
(09:13):
they make them sick. It's like it's like a big database, right,
and then in the best case scenario, how to treat
with somebody who accidentally ingest that thing too. You know.
But we talked about Wiley and the Poison Squad. We
did an episode years ago UM called Does the FDA
Protect Americans? And we talked about them and like, hats
off to them. But between the muckrakers and Dr Wiley, um,
(09:38):
not just government was kind of forced into action, but
the public started to become educated about, you know, just
how dangerous their everyday life was, where before they hadn't
really realized it on any kind of collective level, you know. Yeah,
I think it was the UM and I then we
talked about the Pure Food and Drug Act, Right, didn't
you just say that? Not yet? Okay? That was nineteen
(09:59):
o six, also called it the Wiley Act after Harvey Wiley,
and it basically said, hey, you gotta start labeling stuff.
You gotta be really clear about what's in certain products,
especially if it contains alcohol, heroin, caffeine, cannabis. You gotta
let people know what's in these products. And again with
(10:20):
the media, they were bringing it to light, and if
you were a company at the time, it became a
thing where like just from a pr standpoint, you needed
to start doing this and be a little more transparent.
Otherwise you would get a bad name if poisoning was
in the newspaper and your product was you know, kind
of to blame. Yeah, yeah, which I mean that's kind
of what the um. The Pure Food and Drug Act
(10:42):
of nineteen o six was predicated on the idea that
a company would want to protect its image or business
and not suffer ruination from bad PR. But they found
out um in oh, I guess the mid nineteen thirties
that that just wasn't the case. Um, well, I think
we should do a short stuff on this this episode.
It's just nuts what happened. But the upshot is that
(11:06):
a preparation of sulfonillamide, an antibiotic, was prepared using anti freeze.
Um and there was yeah and there and to give
it like a sweet flavor, raspberry flavor. That's sweet, sweet
and free. That's right. But the upshot of the whole
thing was that there was no regulation that said, you
(11:27):
guys need to test this first. They can just market it.
And they actually got him on a technicality, but a
hundred people died from this, and that really hastened the
UM the law. I think it was an amendment to
the Pure Food and Drug Act that basically said, Okay,
not only do you have to label stuff now when
it has any kind of chemicals or weird ingredients, you
(11:49):
also need to test these things first before you release
them to the public. That was a huge, huge um
foundation that was laid to protect just people like you
and me from the stuff that's in our kitchen or
our bathroom, you know. And it's not like somebody said, Okay,
next up poison control centers. But that was kind of
(12:10):
like the the zeitgeist that was churning as poison control
centers started to come along, you know, tangentially to that.
All Right, so the groundwork is laid, Let's take a
break and we'll come back and get going with in
earnest poison control centers. I love these episodes, Chuck, where
(12:48):
we spend a full third talking about not the thing. No,
but this is all important. I know. Take it easy
on yourself. I'm trying. I'm still recover ring from that
that haymaker you threw earlier movie crush. Yeah. Oh, by
the way, since uh, we don't do any kind of
(13:08):
podcast promotion for our shows at our network, I would
like to promote the Alan Ball six ft Under anniversary episode.
If you were a fan of six ft Under, I'm
really really proud of this episode and go check it out.
It's it's out now. So you interviewed the Alan Ball
creators feed under my basement on my zoom. That's so awesome.
(13:30):
Did you say sixth anniversary? Couldn't be six? Okay, I
thought you said sixth for some reason. Yeah, that's really
and plus I guess that'd be kind of a bizarre
anniversary to celebrate now that they think about it, the
sixth anniversary. When does that come out? It's out, it's live.
That's great. Congratulations, thanks man, it's a good one. So um,
all right, you were being unkind to my friend when
(13:53):
I had to plug make that plug? Who Dr Chevalier Jackson? No, you, oh, Emily,
and always say that when we're beating ourselves up, say
that be nicer, to be nicer to my friend. Alright,
So twentieth century is is going strong. People are starting
(14:13):
to understand, uh and you know, they were making efforts
to try and catalog some stuff, but it was really
sort of all over the place in the early few decades.
I think in the in the twenties. Uh, lie that
you made soup with and some people still mix up
with was kind of one of the big poisoners of
children because depending on what form you had it, and
(14:33):
it could look like milk or sugar, and there was
a doctor named Dr Chevalier Keihode Jackson who was a laryngologist.
That's gotta be how you say it right, not a laryngologist,
I guess so. I'd never said it out loud. I've
always said it in my head, but I've never noticed
how I say it. Well, I think you think you
said it. I mean laryngologists would be what you think,
(14:56):
but laryn geologists sounds more correct, even though it sounds funny. Aaryngeologist, Yeah,
it's got to be that. How maybe it's just called
him an E and T. Maybe it's laryngeologist or a
larynge al list. Lauren, No, you're missing a couple of
letters there, lurngel lists, the laryngelo list. There you go.
(15:18):
Oh goodness, it still cracks me that word for the
rest of the episode. It still cracks me up after
fourteen years when people sweethearts right in and say, hey,
you know, I'm an expert. If you want to help
pronounce me pronounce pronunciating something right exactly, give me up.
I'll help you pronunciate all all day long. Goodness, alright.
What's funny is it'll be like from a laryngelologist, and
(15:41):
we'll just never mentioned larynge al alogists again, so hopefully
unless it comes up a lot like our new friend
molly Bidnium, molly B, molly B is all over alright.
So this laryngologist was having a lot of cases of
kids coming in and swallowing LIE. Wouldn't kill you, but
(16:01):
it would tear up your esophagus so bad that you
might die because you can't eat, which is just awful.
So Dr Jackson said, we gotta really do something about
this LIE problem, and uh really championed the Federal Caustic
Poison Act of ninety seven, which basically kind of only
covered I don't know if it only covered LIE, but
(16:23):
it only covered caustic poisons. Yeah, it was pretty narrow
and pretty specific, and it basically just said you have
to put a warning symbol on right now on those
specific things. But it was a it was an early
um law related to the idea of household chemicals being
dangerous to people and letting people now, because up to
(16:44):
that point, the producers of LIE were like, uh, no,
we have no interest in labeling our product is dangerous.
Why would we tell people that. In fact, a lot
of them marketed the exact opposite were like safe on
skin gentle, you know, like a mountain rain to that
kind of stuff. And it's like, no, it's it's lie.
This is like drain cleaner, you know, or oven cleaner.
(17:06):
It's like the worst of the worst. But that that
law got it past. So that helped laid the groundwork
as well. Um. And then in the thirties there was
a guy who came along named Dr J. I mean,
it's spelled arena, so maybe it's arena or arena, one
of the two. And he was a pediatrician at Duke,
(17:27):
and he basically said, look, this problem extends a lot
more to beyond lie, Like there's a lot of chemicals
that are poisoning kids. I think he actually did write
a thing about lie in particular. Um, but he was
he was saying like, no, this is this is worth cataloging.
And I think he started the process. He started the
whole cataloging poisons trend that became so huge in the thirties. Yeah,
(17:51):
he wrote a book called Beyond the Lie Colon just
kidding that that subtitle is terrible. Uh So, if you
want to look at the might be the father of
the Poison Control Center. Yeah, this is the guy. Not
not quite as awesome as being like the Godfather of
(18:12):
Soul or the Queen of Soul, or the father of
hip hop or Father Time. But if you're the father
of the Poison Control Center, you've done a lot of good.
And it was a pharmacist in Chicago name. Uh, I'm
gonna say Dolomon, Louis Dolman with a silent G on
the front. Does that make sense. I was gonna do
(18:32):
a shout out to our Australian listeners and say his
name is Louis Goodman. For all I know it is
Louie good Almond, but I'm gonna say Louis Dolman. And
he was the first person to really start collecting this data. Uh.
And he did it on index cards. Like I said,
much of the early work and still a lot of
the work they do, is categorizing and cataloging this stuff,
(18:54):
just because you gotta know what card to look up
if someone calls in to say they've been poisoned. And
this was through the forties, and he established a hotline.
Again this was only in the Chicago area, but you
could for um, I mean seven basically call and get
information as yeah, oh no. He would answer the phone
(19:17):
day or night. Yep. He basically said, I'm starting this.
I'm going to be by God, I'm gonna be known
as the father is something, and if it's poison control centers,
so be it. He had his little recipe book cards
literally and would just sit there and thumb through him
and read what he thought was going on. It's amazing.
He was very famous. His catchphrase was hold please, and
(19:39):
then you could hear him sorting through and be like, no,
that's nothing. Eventually those made it to microfiche, right. So um,
he was not just because he created these um index
cards and started taking calls twenty four hours a day.
That's not the only reason he was the father of
the poison control center. He actually started founding with another guy, Ducker,
(20:00):
Edward Press, the first poison control centers that were beyond like,
you know, his bedroom at three in the morning. He
founded I think eleven of them to start, and then
eventually they created a trend that would be followed later
where they were consolidated into a single one, which it
turns out, as far as poison control centers is definitely
(20:20):
way more efficient than having a bunch of different poison
control centers, and they they had like nurses, they had
doctors working there, they had people who knew what they
were talking about, and they were creating like the first database,
the first generalized information about poisonings, about toxicology, like really
(20:41):
helping establish this field from taking data from real world
examples that were the people who were calling in for help.
So it was like a twofold thing. They were helping
the people there, they were helping the doctors who were
helping their patients UM, and they were also gathering data
to create kind of this this foundation for understanding the
(21:02):
effects of toxic chemicals on the human body. Yeah, and
this was I think within five years of that Chicago
system there were two d and sixty five centers opened
in the US, but again still no sort of central
database or national framework or even certification process. Uh. They
(21:24):
were doing a lot of good work, but these first
UM efforts were really different than today's in a couple
of big ways. Uh. One, I mean the biggest one
is that when you call now, you are the human
that has just swallowed something. Calling Back in the day,
if you're poison you called your doctor, then the doctor
would call the poison control center and get their advice
(21:44):
from there. And I think nineteen sixty one is when
these direct calls from the public started to be introduced,
which was a big, big, super necessary change, so that
I mean, that is a huge deal to to to
just go straight to poison control center because before you
had to go to your doctor and then they went
to the poison control center. And apparently that's still the
(22:06):
case in a lot of European countries, but in the
United States you can just call somebody who knows that
they're talking about with poisons. And that is a really
big um effect that poison control centers have is they
prevent unnecessary healthcare spending because, as we'll see, the vast
majority of UM calls to poison control centers can be
(22:30):
resolved like at the place it's happening, whether it's work
or whether it's at your house or something like that.
You don't actually have to go to the hospital. So
if you're not showing up to an emergency room or
a doctor's office or something, that means that's time that
somebody else who does need to be there can be
be having attention paid to them, and it's just less
money spent on healthcare for you showing up. And I
(22:51):
saw in some Massachusetts Rhode Island poison control center website
they estimated that for every dollar invested into a poison
troll center, it saves thirteen dollars in healthcare spending and
lost productivity. It's amazing, it really is. And that's a
huge function that they play. You know, you think of
like poison control centers is basically being like, oh, I
(23:12):
just accidentally drank some anti freeze or something, uh, and
you know, I need to call and get some help.
But there's you know, these other roles that are easily
overlooked that are really important as well that they that
they play. That's kind of evolved over time totally. Um.
So I mentioned the two big changes over the years, uh,
(23:33):
and one was that you call in instead of your doctor.
The other big one was back then, in the early days,
it was almost entirely centered around pediatric poisoning. Uh. And
you know, we have some stats will get too later
you can see why children are still the most poisoned
UM in the population, just you know, from accidents. But
it's uh, they just didn't have a lot of um
(23:56):
data on adult poisoning back then, so it was really
folk child focus and they could help with adult poisonings.
It's not like they would hang up or anything like that,
but it was kids getting their hands on poison as
kind of the big concern. Yeah, so they're starting to
develop in the thirties, forties, fifties, and then UM an
important person named Leroy edgar Berney who was a Surgeon
(24:18):
General of the United States in the late fifties. UM
he got involved. He took an interest in the idea
of poison control centers, started National Poison Awareness Week, I believe,
and UM founded the National Clearinghouse for Poison Control Centers,
which is it took that database idea that started out
as index cards that Lewis Dolman created in his kitchen
(24:43):
and and really kind of professionalized it and made it
like this this big thing that everybody at all the
poison control centers around the country could contribute to UM
and making it this growing body of knowledge. And it
also became something of a magnet for grant and funding
and all that because everyone recognizes, you know this this
(25:04):
role of collecting data for toxicology is really important, and
that's where a lot of the funding, especially any federal
funding that UM poison Control center might get is kind
of aim toward. Yeah, and they were still at the
time using literal carbon paper to create multiple copies of
these things. I think in seventy four there was a
(25:26):
commercial toxicology data set put together finally kind of internets
called Poisondex. I love it. It's pretty good. UM still
in use today. But it's it was funny reading all
this stuff. It's like, I don't know if there's ever
been an institution that was more crying out for the
Internet to be born. Yeah, as far as just as
(25:48):
we'll see with consolidation and efficiencies and sharing of information.
I mean, the Internet changed every everything, uh, you know,
as far as this stuff goes for the better. But
UM poison Control role centers really like when you're mailing
uh pamphlets around the country and you're putting things together
with carbon paper and index cards and even microfiche, it's
(26:11):
like all they needed was the Internet to really make
it a robust system. Yeah, and they they did. I
think they added by hand the Internet, right, Like fifty
million incidents were eventually added a little by little. It's
a lot of hard work to what became known as
the National Poison Data System the MPDS, and that's still
(26:33):
in in uh in use today. So there's a ton
of information. Like every time you call poison control and
they start a case that the details of that case
end up being added to the poison data system. Um,
and so that database is growing, you know, every day.
Should we take that second break? I think? So, all right,
(26:54):
let's take another break, and we'll flash forward to the
wild seventies and eighties and see what was going on
in the poison control centers. Okay, chuck, it's the seventies
(27:23):
and anybody at the poison control centers are taking pills
themselves sometimes have to call in for help. Um. The
eighties weren't much better, and there's some other stuff going on. Yeah,
So in the seventies are um with the advent of
more people abusing pills, that became a larger focus of
(27:45):
poison control centers and the toxicology. I think in seventy
four was when the prescription pill bottles, and I think
we talked about this in the wasn't the title at all? No,
because that was over the counter prescription pills were in
nine and seventy four. As far as child proofing, and
that really made a marked difference over the next couple
(28:06):
of decades and kids being poisoned by by drugs. Yeah,
between seventy four and ninety six, the incidents of kids
dying from prescription pill poisonings decreased by So that was
a really good federal law. And what's interesting is because
of that law, and because of these information campaigns that
(28:29):
were drummed up to kind of like not just let
parents know about, you know, the hazards of of dangerous chemicals,
but also let kids know too, poisonings of children actually
declined so dramatically that there was a vacuum left open,
basically free time that toxicologists and poison centers had to
start investigating and better understanding adult poisoning incidents as well.
(28:52):
So there's kind of a shift in the seventies and
eighties in that sense. Yeah, and then in the sixties,
another one of my favorite things in pop culture history
happened is when they decided that, you know, we're using
the skull and crossbones to indicate something as poisonous, and
it turns out children love pirates, so that's probably sending
(29:12):
a mixed message. So we need to we need to
do something about this. So they mounted in Pittsburgh what's
called the Mr. Yuck y Uk campaign, and it was
to get a new logo basically that kids would not
want to go drink the product like because they thought
it was Pirates juice or whatever Pirates room. And uh
they did a little thing where they got all these
(29:34):
different logos and designs created, showed them to a bunch
of kids and said which ones do you least like?
Which one of these designs is yuck to you? And
they chose a picture of Martin Screwley's face. It's amazing. Wow,
that was quite a build up. I wish I could
(29:55):
read out all the different faces I have on this
page before I settled on Martin Screlly. Who else you
gotta give us? I don't really think I can, because
I took them off for reasons, because you can't go
after someone hard unless it's a guy like that, you know. Yeah,
I got to sure, sure, well, because I gotta know,
(30:16):
I forget about everybody else. I just need to know.
Uh No, it was actually what they called it was
Mr Yuck and it was the what you see now
a lot of times, is that sort of sick green um,
emoji face that's really upset. It looks like it's kind
of puky, and kids are like, I don't like that face.
So they said, well, I guess that's what we'll start using.
Then they said perfect, yeah, yeah that when that was
(30:38):
pretty successful too. Um. And then one of the other
things that really kind of happened during this time because
I guess poison control centers were a bit of a
victim of their own success. Um, there was this push
for consolidation. Um. There was just so many poison control
centers and now they were working thanks to the National
Poison Data System. They were like working in tandem with
(31:02):
one another, like they were sharing information and knowledge and
that kind of stuff. But there were just too many
of them. There's an unnecessary need or an unnecessary number.
And then even more inefficiently, despite the fact that there
were six hundred and fifty almost poison control centers in
the United States, only about half of the American population
(31:22):
was covered by a poison control center. Like, if you
were poisoned in Topeka, say you had to drive to
Kansas City and use the phone to call a poison
control center. I made that up, but I bet it's
pretty close. To accurate, and if those cities aren't correct,
the general sentiment is okay, everybody, so just layoff. Uh.
(31:44):
And even the most robust poison control centers were getting
like maybe ten calls a day, So that's just really
inefficient that. Like you said, they were sharing information. That
was good, but it was ironically sort of the lack
of budgeting that led them to start. It wasn't like
they said, hey, let's just start shrinking are the number
of these centers? They were kind of forced to and
(32:06):
then the writing was on the wall, like there's a
much more efficient way to do this, because we're talking
about call centers, you know. Yeah, is there anything that
Ronald Reagan couldn't do? Chuck? He never won an Academy Award,
I believe it. Have you seen any of his movies?
I haven't actually oh that he was not a great actor. No,
(32:29):
they weren't good particularly so yeah, I haven't seen in
those old westerns. So but the upshot of it, um, Well,
he was also in like hell Cats of the Navy,
that's where he met Nancy. And that was a World
War two picture. Okay, I didn't see that one either.
I didn't either. I've seen bits of it. How about that,
you know, I have to he wasn't a great actor.
(32:51):
But the upshot of it was UM that uh, that
there were fewer poison control centers, and that actually panned
out to be a good thing. It was surprising to
me was despite the fact that automated switching UM was
introduced in the seventies or the eighties at a T
and T invented in the seventies, introduced in the eighties,
it wasn't until two thousand one or two thousand two
(33:14):
that there is a single national eight hundred number for
poison control centers in the US. We should say that number.
I agree we should. If we that would be totally US.
I actually wrote it down on the front. Make sure. Yeah,
it's an eight hundred to two two one to two two.
(33:37):
You had to do it like a TV commercial. Okay,
do it. That's one eight hundred two two two one
to two two again one eight hundred to two two
one to two two. That's we're making a joke, but
that's what you're supposed to do. You know, three times
you gotta do it. I think by two thousand two
that number had shrunk to sixty four pccs in the US,
(33:59):
and that's when that that toll free number was introduced.
I'm sorry, it was in two thousand one, I think
that was introduced, and by that time it went from
six and fifty servicing half the United States to sixty
four servicing all of the United States. Yeah, I think
it's down to fifty five now. It's a lean, mean
efficiency machine, thank you all, thanks to that national number.
(34:21):
And so there's fifty five. That doesn't mean there's one
in every state, and five states have two. There's actually
some states that don't have any. Like I was saying,
there's a shared regional poison control center between Massachusetts and
Rhode Island, UM, but they there. So there's some states
that don't have their own. But everybody is served because
(34:42):
they can call that number. It gets routed to either
your closest poison control center or a poison control center
whose line isn't busy. Right then, because you're you know,
what you're ingesting in, um, you know, San Diego is
probably the same product that you would be jesting in,
you know, Burlington, Vermont. So it doesn't really matter who
(35:04):
you talked to. They're going to also be working from
the same data set, the National Poison Data System. So
whoever can get to the phone, UM, you're gonna be
talking to somebody who is either a doctor, UM, most
likely a nurse, or there are specialists a poison control
specialists UM, who's basically an information person. They're not a
(35:25):
they're not a healthcare provider, but they work under the
auspices of say like a nurse or a doctor at
the poison control center. And they are UM certified and
ongoing educated in toxicology, so they know what they're talking about. Yeah,
so you you could go work for a poison control
center if you wanted to and not go to medical
(35:45):
school or get medical training. You just get on the
job training. I think there's a lot of pharmacists too
to take these calls UM, and as efficiently as they
run it is maybe this is why, uh, they are
not like the day to day ops are still not
federally funded. UM. They do get some federal funding, like
through the CDC for data collection, and but a lot
(36:08):
of it comes through affiliated institutions, local health departments. UM.
Like I said a little from the CDC, and I
think the there was a there was another act. The
Poison Control Center Enhancement an Awareness Act provided. I think
they provided the funds for the number, but they're still like, hey,
you want to keep the lights on and keep it staffed.
(36:30):
You're not getting federally funded, which is interesting. I mean
it's working though, so I guess maybe there's something to
be said for getting the federal government out of this situation. Sure,
But at the same time, it makes you wonder like
what they could be doing if they weren't chronically underfunded,
Like if they didn't have to have bake sales, do
contract poisonings for local mobs or um asked for donations
(36:53):
like that. That that stat I got about one dollar
being invested in turning into thirteen dollars saved. That was
from a nation page for a poison control center. I mean,
come on, like those things should be you know, they
don't have to be like bloated or anything like that,
but they shouldn't be underfunded. That's just dumb. Yeah, And
I think, just so people don't misunderstand, I wasn't saying, like, good,
(37:16):
the federal government, you know, funds too many things, but
the fact that they are a lean, mean poison control machine.
It doesn't surprise me that the federal government is involved.
You know what I mean? Yeah, you're like, watch everyone
as I turned into a fiscal conservative before your very eyes.
Poof Um, alright, what what just happened? I don't know.
(37:39):
Did you convert back? No? I'm good. That was close.
So um, all right, what happened? You call a poison
control center. You're gonna get that call answered, like you
mentioned earlier, not necessarily by the one in Atlanta. Um,
if they're busy, they may broute you to just a
different one. They'll be very friendly, they'll keep you calm. Yeah,
(38:00):
that's the impression I have. I didn't actually call one
because I didn't want to. I was scared too, But
apparently you can just to get information if you want. Sure.
The first thing they're gonna do, though, is is route
your call, like if you're uh, if you just mistakenly
called the number, because the first one you could think
about after a car accident, they would say they would
(38:20):
route you to nine one one and say maybe like, boy,
you must have hit your head or something that way,
dumb you remembered eight hundred two two two one to
two two over nine one one? Are you kidding me?
Crazy things have happened. And also that's another thing too.
You can call nine one one and they can actually
route you to poison control centers. What goes both ways.
But I saw frequently they get calls from people who
(38:42):
are suffering or think they're suffering, like food poisoning. They
don't handle that kind of thing, but they will make
sure that you get to somebody who does. Right. So
they're gonna they're gonna talk you through that to begin
with reroute you if they need to. They're gonna start
immediately providing uh treatment advice, like if it's an a
real emergency, they're gonna they're gonna, you know, kind of
(39:03):
tell you what to do in the immediate like minutes
that you're on the phone, uh, consult with anyone else
they need to. And if you do need emergency care,
and we'll go over the stats here in a second
of how many actually do, which is not as many
as you would think. They will call the paramedics, they
will call ahead to the local e er. They're gonna say, hey,
you've got someone coming in. His name is Josh Clark.
(39:24):
He drank pine sall he thought it was apple juice.
And they'll say Josh Clark the podcaster. He's pretty dumb, apparently,
And they will arrange kind of for all that ahead
of time. They might even order test in the hospital,
maybe a pizza, maybe a pizza or some other treatment.
And they will even monitor and follow up on cases.
Yeah until a Yeah, they keep and even if you're
(39:46):
you know, if you're going to the hospital, they might,
um they might coordinate you being transferred to a specialized center. Um.
Like they are really, like I was saying, hands on.
And then even if you stay at home, if they're
like okay, this is good, You're you're fine, and like, uh, okay,
this is fine. You were overwhelmed by oven cleaner fumes
or something like that. Just you know, open the windows,
(40:07):
go outside. You're you know, take a few minutes, but
you're probably gonna be okay. I'm gonna stay on the
phone with you whatever. After you get off the phone,
they'll probably call you back in a half hour, an
hour or something like that to check on you, to
make sure you're still doing okay. Like I love poison
control specialists. I think they're just the bomb. You know what,
now I'm remembering we did call poison control one time
(40:32):
when my daughter was a baby. Totally forgot about this.
I don't even remember what it was. It turned out
to be nothing, and it wasn't. I mean, she didn't
drink anything or get poisoned, but we thought something might
have happened. So you call and I remember now this
triggered it because I remember them following up almost in
(40:52):
a child welfare sort of capacity. It felt like, like, uh,
did you do something. I remember getting grilled a little bit,
or Emily getting grilled, and that's being like, man, poison
control is no joke. Uh. I'll have to ask her
tonight when she gets home. But I definitely remember now
(41:14):
that that was just I remember the follow up part
of it. Wow. And the fact that my daughter left.
I remember that part. Yeah, that that part too. So um,
if you do call and you you know, they walk
you through the case and everything, like like we were saying,
they'll they'll follow up, and all of that stuff gets
logged into the National Poison Database and every eight minutes
(41:35):
across all those fifty five poison control centers, all of
their new information gets uploaded to the c d C,
where there's a team of toxicologists who are engaged in
toxo surveillance who scan all this stuff to look for
signs of say, an outbreak of disease, and outbreak of
poisoning is an outbreak of a new drug of abuse
(41:58):
that people are suddenly, um you thing, and that is
that is one of those big unsung functions of poison
control centers is they can be the group who notices
something that's happening all over the country to where you know,
the individual e rs it's just one person coming in,
but to these poison control centers, they are you know,
(42:20):
there's fifty people suddenly around the country who are dropping
dead from heroin. Well, that's not supposed to happen. What's
going on with the heroin. There's actually a case in
nineties six, I think, where poison control centers noticed that
that people were showing up to e R s in
the Northeast from heroin and they figured out that somebody
had added scopel I mean to heroin and that people
(42:42):
were having really bad reactions to it. And it was
the poison control centers who noticed that those are what
are called sentinel events, which is um a A there's
a signal, there's a there's a basically exactly that something
is afoot and um, they can help advise on how
to treat it. They can contact the CDC. There's a
(43:02):
bunch of stuff they can do. So they're like the
first line of defense and monitoring that kind of stuff. Yeah,
they've also in the last couple of decades been more
involved with helping to tackle environmental toxic exposure. So like
after the nine eleven attacks, obviously when there was you know,
so much like bad stuff that first responders were breathing in, UM,
(43:23):
the anthrax attacks that happened later on that year, UM,
stuff like that, they're more and more involved in. So
they're really more and more on the front lines of
sort of tackling bigger things than my podcast host partner
drank some pines all although that's up there. It tasted
so bad too, but man, it looked like it was
(43:44):
going to be some Apple two. Should we wind it
out with some stats. Yeah, let's Although there's one other
thing I want to say this. You know, we've been
touting it's it's uh, it's virtues and for for good reason.
But it's not a perfect system. Uh. And that was
evidenced in I think two thousand twelve, two thousand and sixteen.
I cannot remember, but there was, um they kind of
(44:04):
famously poison centers missed the um the rash of tide
pod poisonings that little kids were like, this thing looks delicious.
Let me neat this UM and that that there were
poisonings as a result, but there was no UH code
that could be entered in the National Poison Data system.
(44:25):
So the poison centers kind of knew what was going on,
but they weren't really able to share this information and
basically create this you know, Notice that this is a
sentinel event because of basically a clerical problem, a clerical issue,
and I think they've since solved it, but um, you know,
it's still an evolving, ongoing process hammering out how to
(44:45):
how to do this. But I think we were we
were right in generally, you know, trumpeting how great this
system is. Yeah, of course, UM, statistically a couple of
years ago, in nineteen and of all the calls, and
we're kids six and under, we're adults. Uh so I
(45:06):
guess that leaves what between If you were under six,
most of the poisonings were one in two year olds.
More boys are poison than girls. Um, if you're thirteen
and under, but more girls than boys if you're older
than which is sad because it indicates the spike in
(45:29):
self harm that poison control centers see as kids enter
the teenage years, and it is largely girls. It's not
exactly like girls just leaving boys in the dust, but
they're definitely in the majority. UM or they're in the lead,
I guess when it comes to self harm as far
as poison control statistics go. But UM, that's also seen
(45:50):
in the UH. The unintentional poisonings, like two percent of
kids six and under, UM, they're poisonings are unintentional. Adult
sixty are unintentional. With teenagers only thirty three percent of
the poison calls that come in are unintentional. The rest
are and are considered either self harm or it's like
(46:12):
a drug overdose, which they're not setting out to overdose
on drugs, but it's still considered intentional and the fact
that they intentionally injected themselves or snort died that thing,
or you know whatever else you do with drugs. Right. UH.
In nineteen I think a little more than seventy six
total were accidental UM eight percent total. We're almost nineteen
(46:39):
percent total were intentional. And I think sixty eight thousand
calls that your work for animals. We did mention that animals,
you know, they you still want to call your vet,
but if your animal ingested a toxic poison from your house,
you can call a poison control center to get kind
of quick information. And then I think I said earlier
Chuck that like you can just call and ask them
(47:02):
questions and they're totally cool with you. Like, there's a
decent number of calls that come in every year from
people saying like, hey, I want to take the St.
John's warp, but my doctor prescribed me this um you
know this heart medicine. Is that going to go okay
with that party? Those would be right. Those would be
the people that you would call and they will give
(47:24):
you the info that you need and if you're looking
around your house and wondering what's gonna do it. The
top culprits for accidental poisoning at eleven p eleven and
a half percent were cosmetics and personal care products. Imagine that, Well,
they're so frequently left in, you know, easy to grasp places.
They also smell good, they taste good one percent more
(47:46):
than household cleaners. And I think at nine percent. You've
got pain relief medications. Uh yeah, also algae blooms, toxic mushrooms,
sharden batteries. Those are also problematic too. I think though
sixty six of all cases are resolved at home, at
least they were in nineteen, so that is, you know,
(48:09):
it's a pretty decent majority. What's the number again, chuck
two two two one to two two. Yeah. You can
also go to poison help dot org. That's the Poison
Control Center's website, and you can actually report online too,
So there you go. Um, only if you have a
(48:29):
poisoning or a good question. I guess too. Um. But
since we said a good question, of course everybody, that
means it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call
this a couple of quick corrections. This is too for
your money. Hey guys, Dr John Vera Hoven my physical
(48:52):
metallurgy professor. Yeah, was from the Superior Iowa's eight not
University of Iowa. I'm sorry, goose that one up. We
have a proud metallurgy tradition, including the purest uranium used
in the original Manhattan Project experiment produced by Dr harveyville
Helm ghost cyclones, and that's from Bryan Sutton. Sorry about that, Brandon,
(49:17):
all of these cyclones out there, I apologize. And then
this is another one. This is from doctor Great Art,
a k a. Doctor Mark staff Brandle, docent and associate
Professor Emmett, emeritus in Switzerland, says there was much to
compliment about the art mystry show, but I have one
small complaint. Uh Caravaggio signature and the Malta aft altarpiece. Uh.
(49:43):
The f is very well known and not a mystery.
There are thousands of paintings by hundreds of artists with this.
It is uh. Indeed, it is certainly an abbreviation for facet.
The best translation would be was made by uh. This
email message e g. Is f Mark staff brand Old
wink wink. So he says that was really not a
(50:03):
mystery and that was a common thing so we did
not know that. Well, thank you Dr great Art, and
also thank you Brin for that. And also I think
I said that the KFC YUM Center was in Lexington
when it's well, you don't confuse those two. That's it's
very bad. No, I'm just gonna go ahead and say
I've been secretly trolling everybody that I'm well aware of
(50:25):
all of these very big there right. Yeah. Sorry everyone,
I'm so sorry. I probably won't be back after this.
Um so, I guess in the meantime, if you want
to send us an email or send it off to
stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you
(50:46):
Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles w Chuck, Brian and Jerry's over here,
and this is stuff you should know. Yeah, how are
(00:25):
you doing? Man? I'm great. I'm have not been poisoned yet.
I have no need to get on the phone and
call an expert at this point. Luckily, my daughter has
never been poisoned, although that's a big concern for parents. Yeah,
no joke here, No, not joking, nothing funny about poisoned children,
(00:47):
unless you're talking about little young Brett Michael's. He was
he was a stitch in a cut up. Oh oh
oh wow, a little ricky rocket. I was confused, Um, tickled,
and then disappointed, all within like half of a second. Oh,
I thought you were gonna stay disappointed in the joke,
because that's the fourth stage of recovery. I thought it
(01:09):
was great. Maybe like a month from now, I'll be like,
you know, that jokes about poison wasn't that great? But
who knows, maybe I'll also be laughing about it years later.
For example, UM, I watched uh F the other day
for the first time in a little while. I haven't
seen it, and just today, out of the blue apropos
of nothing, I cracked myself up thinking about one of
(01:32):
the jokes. So, uh, there's a segment about Conan the librarian.
Somebody asks for a book on astronomy, and Conan grabs
the guy and lifts him up by his shirt and
he goes, don't you know the Dewey decimal system was
in it? It was a really good approximation of Arnold.
(01:52):
For a second, I thought it was Bruce Campbell and
I actually looked on the credits and it's not. But um,
it looks exactly like Bruce Campbell doing Arnold Schwarzenegger. You
know what I watched the other day for the I
think first time ever did we talk about this pumping iron? Yeah,
I've never watched it. I think we might have already
spoken about this, though I did on the show even
(02:16):
maybe No, no, no, definitely not within weeks. No, no, unless,
like my brain is sloshing around, probably has everyone out
there's going, Yes, Josh, you mentioned it three episodes ago,
and you're both stupid. It rings a bell that you
did mention it, but it was not weeks ago. I
think you're confusing your other podcast, Movie Crush. I don't
think so, because one of them is good and one
(02:37):
of them is you're crazy cutting up. But you're talking
about a movie and it couldn't possibly have been mentioned
on the movie podcast. Is what your position is? Maybe
it was okay, but Movie Crushes the good podcast. Oh well,
I resubmit my you're crazy. I'm sorry. I just poisoned you. Yeah,
(03:04):
and a million listeners, So maybe we should just get
going on this. I thought this was really interesting. I
think we should take an ad break. No. So yeah,
it was interesting and it wasn't like based on anything
but curiosity. Like I realized that I had no idea
how poison control centers worked, Like like you, I have
(03:24):
never had occasion to call one. Luckily, um, but they're there,
and it's kind of like a really great thing that
they're there and that they are, um there to keep
scared parents from you know, freaking out because their kids
ate something weird or their dog ate something weird, or
you know, they ate something weird. Um, and to say
(03:47):
basically say like no, you need to get to a hospital.
And not only that, I'm gonna help you throughout this
process of going to the hospital and staying at the hospital,
because poison control centers are like the most hands on
remote medical discipline there is. Yeah, and if it was
a hundred and change years ago, you'd be lucky if
(04:08):
whatever you accidentally drank in your house even has ingredients
listed on it. And if it did have ingredients, you'd
be lucky if they were accurate or truthful, because no
one cared and you wouldn't be able to call anyone
to help. And if you went to your local, you know,
community doctor, good luck if they're even available a hundred
(04:29):
and ten years ago. And if they were, they'd probably
be like, jeez, I don't really know what to do
except maybe try and make you vomit. Yeah, nothing more
than a two bit bumpkin was what you had for
a doctor back then, you drinking sody pop. Yeah, exactly,
the sassafras um. But and and so you might say, well, like,
what is a hundred years ago matter? Why not further back?
(04:52):
That's a really good question, And the answer that is
that poison control is a fairly recent invention, not because
people just thought of it, but because we didn't really
need it before, because we didn't really have poisons around
us prior to about the Industrial Revolution, Like the closest
thing you had to poison was a snake that made
(05:13):
its way into your house. You definitely didn't open your
your cabinet beneath the sink, probably because you didn't have
a sink, but also even if you had a sink,
you didn't have like household chemicals at your disposal until
industrialization came around. Yeah, I mean before that, there might
have been you know, you could extract some poison type
things from plants and maybe got something at a at
(05:35):
a traveling kind of snake oil situation, but it wasn't
like they were on the general store shelves all over
the country and then later stores, like you said, until
the Industrial Revolution when we said, hey, it turns out
that we can use chemicals. Uh, and they they can
be very handy. They are dangerous, but I mean, who
would who would drink a bottle of floor cleaner? People
(05:58):
know better than that, Right, We don't have to tell that,
do we You're right exactly? Um? They said, actually, yes,
we totally do. And I saw actually a comparison on
a poisoned website that's still today. People apparently get poisoned,
including adults, from accidentally drinking things that they think are
other safer things. And they had bottles of stuff next
(06:20):
to bottles of others, like food, and you're like, wow,
that really actually does bear a passing resemblance, Like pine
salt looks a lot like apple juice when you put
it next to a bottle of apple juice. And there's
a brand of apple juice that looks roughly like the
pine salt label. Yeah, it's not so I think you
(06:40):
could drink um. The most you would do is probably
embarrass yourself. But I see things that look like toothpaste
a lot that you would not want to put on
a toothbrush and put in your mouth. What are you
hanging around with that looks like toothpaste that you wouldn't
want to brush your teeth with? Well, I mean there's
all sorts of I mean, like lubes you looving en
up like calamine, and you know, I feel like I've
(07:03):
seen some other creams and things that look you know,
because that's a it's an obviously a good way to
carry it, toothpaste like thing, and it is an old
tube like that, but a lot of them look alike.
Is my point. I see, So do you have to
be like, don't brush your teeth with this reminder to
use a children's toothpaste so it has big dinosaurs on it.
(07:24):
I think it wasn't so much back in the day.
Like now today, there's like basically no excuse because we
spent the last hundred years being um inculcated into the
idea that there are a lot of dangerous things in
our everyday lives. But you know, back in the day,
this was all brand new to people and they just
didn't know. Um. Sometimes manufacturers actually didn't know, and they
(07:48):
found out the hard way. And because people were suffering
from this, it was obvious that there was a need
for people to say, Okay, we need to start studying
these things a little more. And a lot of the
um great great meaning like really fantastic and triumphant government
bureaucracies here in the United States arose from protecting like
(08:10):
everyday people from the stuff that they were eating his
food or using his medicines, like things you're supposed to
be able to trust. They couldn't trust back then. So
entire sub disciplines of the medical profession kind of developed
to protect people from those things. Yeah, it was mid
delayed eighteen hundreds when people started saying, hey, this is
(08:31):
a problem, this is an issue. I think a lot
of journalists did great work early on to expose a
lot of this stuff, a lot of these dangers, and say,
you know, some of these medicines can be really dangerous.
Then a guy came along named Dr Harvey Wiley. He
ran the Bureau of Chemistry, which proceeded the f d A,
and he had a group called the Poison Squad, who
(08:51):
were these healthy young men who would who would poison themselves.
They would eat chemicals to see what happened. Because, as
you'll see kind of throughout this whole epiodisode, much of
the work of poison control, from the very beginning all
the way up through today is just simply categorizing and
listing out things that make people sick and exactly how
(09:13):
they make them sick. It's like it's like a big database, right,
and then in the best case scenario, how to treat
with somebody who accidentally ingest that thing too. You know.
But we talked about Wiley and the Poison Squad. We
did an episode years ago UM called Does the FDA
Protect Americans? And we talked about them and like, hats
off to them. But between the muckrakers and Dr Wiley, um,
(09:38):
not just government was kind of forced into action, but
the public started to become educated about, you know, just
how dangerous their everyday life was, where before they hadn't
really realized it on any kind of collective level, you know. Yeah,
I think it was the UM and I then we
talked about the Pure Food and Drug Act, Right, didn't
you just say that? Not yet? Okay? That was nineteen
(09:59):
o six, also called it the Wiley Act after Harvey Wiley,
and it basically said, hey, you gotta start labeling stuff.
You gotta be really clear about what's in certain products,
especially if it contains alcohol, heroin, caffeine, cannabis. You gotta
let people know what's in these products. And again with
(10:20):
the media, they were bringing it to light, and if
you were a company at the time, it became a
thing where like just from a pr standpoint, you needed
to start doing this and be a little more transparent.
Otherwise you would get a bad name if poisoning was
in the newspaper and your product was you know, kind
of to blame. Yeah, yeah, which I mean that's kind
of what the um. The Pure Food and Drug Act
(10:42):
of nineteen o six was predicated on the idea that
a company would want to protect its image or business
and not suffer ruination from bad PR. But they found
out um in oh, I guess the mid nineteen thirties
that that just wasn't the case. Um, well, I think
we should do a short stuff on this this episode.
It's just nuts what happened. But the upshot is that
(11:06):
a preparation of sulfonillamide, an antibiotic, was prepared using anti freeze.
Um and there was yeah and there and to give
it like a sweet flavor, raspberry flavor. That's sweet, sweet
and free. That's right. But the upshot of the whole
thing was that there was no regulation that said, you
(11:27):
guys need to test this first. They can just market it.
And they actually got him on a technicality, but a
hundred people died from this, and that really hastened the
UM the law. I think it was an amendment to
the Pure Food and Drug Act that basically said, Okay,
not only do you have to label stuff now when
it has any kind of chemicals or weird ingredients, you
(11:49):
also need to test these things first before you release
them to the public. That was a huge, huge um
foundation that was laid to protect just people like you
and me from the stuff that's in our kitchen or
our bathroom, you know. And it's not like somebody said, Okay,
next up poison control centers. But that was kind of
(12:10):
like the the zeitgeist that was churning as poison control
centers started to come along, you know, tangentially to that.
All Right, so the groundwork is laid, Let's take a
break and we'll come back and get going with in
earnest poison control centers. I love these episodes, Chuck, where
(12:48):
we spend a full third talking about not the thing. No,
but this is all important. I know. Take it easy
on yourself. I'm trying. I'm still recover ring from that
that haymaker you threw earlier movie crush. Yeah. Oh, by
the way, since uh, we don't do any kind of
(13:08):
podcast promotion for our shows at our network, I would
like to promote the Alan Ball six ft Under anniversary episode.
If you were a fan of six ft Under, I'm
really really proud of this episode and go check it out.
It's it's out now. So you interviewed the Alan Ball
creators feed under my basement on my zoom. That's so awesome.
(13:30):
Did you say sixth anniversary? Couldn't be six? Okay, I
thought you said sixth for some reason. Yeah, that's really
and plus I guess that'd be kind of a bizarre
anniversary to celebrate now that they think about it, the
sixth anniversary. When does that come out? It's out, it's live.
That's great. Congratulations, thanks man, it's a good one. So um,
all right, you were being unkind to my friend when
(13:53):
I had to plug make that plug? Who Dr Chevalier Jackson? No, you, oh, Emily,
and always say that when we're beating ourselves up, say
that be nicer, to be nicer to my friend. Alright,
So twentieth century is is going strong. People are starting
(14:13):
to understand, uh and you know, they were making efforts
to try and catalog some stuff, but it was really
sort of all over the place in the early few decades.
I think in the in the twenties. Uh, lie that
you made soup with and some people still mix up
with was kind of one of the big poisoners of
children because depending on what form you had it, and
(14:33):
it could look like milk or sugar, and there was
a doctor named Dr Chevalier Keihode Jackson who was a laryngologist.
That's gotta be how you say it right, not a laryngologist,
I guess so. I'd never said it out loud. I've
always said it in my head, but I've never noticed
how I say it. Well, I think you think you
said it. I mean laryngologists would be what you think,
(14:56):
but laryn geologists sounds more correct, even though it sounds funny. Aaryngeologist, Yeah,
it's got to be that. How maybe it's just called
him an E and T. Maybe it's laryngeologist or a
larynge al list. Lauren, No, you're missing a couple of
letters there, lurngel lists, the laryngelo list. There you go.
(15:18):
Oh goodness, it still cracks me that word for the
rest of the episode. It still cracks me up after
fourteen years when people sweethearts right in and say, hey,
you know, I'm an expert. If you want to help
pronounce me pronounce pronunciating something right exactly, give me up.
I'll help you pronunciate all all day long. Goodness, alright.
What's funny is it'll be like from a laryngelologist, and
(15:41):
we'll just never mentioned larynge al alogists again, so hopefully
unless it comes up a lot like our new friend
molly Bidnium, molly B, molly B is all over alright.
So this laryngologist was having a lot of cases of
kids coming in and swallowing LIE. Wouldn't kill you, but
(16:01):
it would tear up your esophagus so bad that you
might die because you can't eat, which is just awful.
So Dr Jackson said, we gotta really do something about
this LIE problem, and uh really championed the Federal Caustic
Poison Act of ninety seven, which basically kind of only
covered I don't know if it only covered LIE, but
(16:23):
it only covered caustic poisons. Yeah, it was pretty narrow
and pretty specific, and it basically just said you have
to put a warning symbol on right now on those
specific things. But it was a it was an early
um law related to the idea of household chemicals being
dangerous to people and letting people now, because up to
(16:44):
that point, the producers of LIE were like, uh, no,
we have no interest in labeling our product is dangerous.
Why would we tell people that. In fact, a lot
of them marketed the exact opposite were like safe on
skin gentle, you know, like a mountain rain to that
kind of stuff. And it's like, no, it's it's lie.
This is like drain cleaner, you know, or oven cleaner.
(17:06):
It's like the worst of the worst. But that that
law got it past. So that helped laid the groundwork
as well. Um. And then in the thirties there was
a guy who came along named Dr J. I mean,
it's spelled arena, so maybe it's arena or arena, one
of the two. And he was a pediatrician at Duke,
(17:27):
and he basically said, look, this problem extends a lot
more to beyond lie, Like there's a lot of chemicals
that are poisoning kids. I think he actually did write
a thing about lie in particular. Um, but he was
he was saying like, no, this is this is worth cataloging.
And I think he started the process. He started the
whole cataloging poisons trend that became so huge in the thirties. Yeah,
(17:51):
he wrote a book called Beyond the Lie Colon just
kidding that that subtitle is terrible. Uh So, if you
want to look at the might be the father of
the Poison Control Center. Yeah, this is the guy. Not
not quite as awesome as being like the Godfather of
(18:12):
Soul or the Queen of Soul, or the father of
hip hop or Father Time. But if you're the father
of the Poison Control Center, you've done a lot of good.
And it was a pharmacist in Chicago name. Uh, I'm
gonna say Dolomon, Louis Dolman with a silent G on
the front. Does that make sense. I was gonna do
(18:32):
a shout out to our Australian listeners and say his
name is Louis Goodman. For all I know it is
Louie good Almond, but I'm gonna say Louis Dolman. And
he was the first person to really start collecting this data. Uh.
And he did it on index cards. Like I said,
much of the early work and still a lot of
the work they do, is categorizing and cataloging this stuff,
(18:54):
just because you gotta know what card to look up
if someone calls in to say they've been poisoned. And
this was through the forties, and he established a hotline.
Again this was only in the Chicago area, but you
could for um, I mean seven basically call and get
information as yeah, oh no. He would answer the phone
(19:17):
day or night. Yep. He basically said, I'm starting this.
I'm going to be by God, I'm gonna be known
as the father is something, and if it's poison control centers,
so be it. He had his little recipe book cards
literally and would just sit there and thumb through him
and read what he thought was going on. It's amazing.
He was very famous. His catchphrase was hold please, and
(19:39):
then you could hear him sorting through and be like, no,
that's nothing. Eventually those made it to microfiche, right. So um,
he was not just because he created these um index
cards and started taking calls twenty four hours a day.
That's not the only reason he was the father of
the poison control center. He actually started founding with another guy, Ducker,
(20:00):
Edward Press, the first poison control centers that were beyond like,
you know, his bedroom at three in the morning. He
founded I think eleven of them to start, and then
eventually they created a trend that would be followed later
where they were consolidated into a single one, which it
turns out, as far as poison control centers is definitely
(20:20):
way more efficient than having a bunch of different poison
control centers, and they they had like nurses, they had
doctors working there, they had people who knew what they
were talking about, and they were creating like the first database,
the first generalized information about poisonings, about toxicology, like really
(20:41):
helping establish this field from taking data from real world
examples that were the people who were calling in for help.
So it was like a twofold thing. They were helping
the people there, they were helping the doctors who were
helping their patients UM, and they were also gathering data
to create kind of this this foundation for understanding the
(21:02):
effects of toxic chemicals on the human body. Yeah, and
this was I think within five years of that Chicago
system there were two d and sixty five centers opened
in the US, but again still no sort of central
database or national framework or even certification process. Uh. They
(21:24):
were doing a lot of good work, but these first
UM efforts were really different than today's in a couple
of big ways. Uh. One, I mean the biggest one
is that when you call now, you are the human
that has just swallowed something. Calling Back in the day,
if you're poison you called your doctor, then the doctor
would call the poison control center and get their advice
(21:44):
from there. And I think nineteen sixty one is when
these direct calls from the public started to be introduced,
which was a big, big, super necessary change, so that
I mean, that is a huge deal to to to
just go straight to poison control center because before you
had to go to your doctor and then they went
to the poison control center. And apparently that's still the
(22:06):
case in a lot of European countries, but in the
United States you can just call somebody who knows that
they're talking about with poisons. And that is a really
big um effect that poison control centers have is they
prevent unnecessary healthcare spending because, as we'll see, the vast
majority of UM calls to poison control centers can be
(22:30):
resolved like at the place it's happening, whether it's work
or whether it's at your house or something like that.
You don't actually have to go to the hospital. So
if you're not showing up to an emergency room or
a doctor's office or something, that means that's time that
somebody else who does need to be there can be
be having attention paid to them, and it's just less
money spent on healthcare for you showing up. And I
(22:51):
saw in some Massachusetts Rhode Island poison control center website
they estimated that for every dollar invested into a poison
troll center, it saves thirteen dollars in healthcare spending and
lost productivity. It's amazing, it really is. And that's a
huge function that they play. You know, you think of
like poison control centers is basically being like, oh, I
(23:12):
just accidentally drank some anti freeze or something, uh, and
you know, I need to call and get some help.
But there's you know, these other roles that are easily
overlooked that are really important as well that they that
they play. That's kind of evolved over time totally. Um.
So I mentioned the two big changes over the years, uh,
(23:33):
and one was that you call in instead of your doctor.
The other big one was back then, in the early days,
it was almost entirely centered around pediatric poisoning. Uh. And
you know, we have some stats will get too later
you can see why children are still the most poisoned
UM in the population, just you know, from accidents. But
it's uh, they just didn't have a lot of um
(23:56):
data on adult poisoning back then, so it was really
folk child focus and they could help with adult poisonings.
It's not like they would hang up or anything like that,
but it was kids getting their hands on poison as
kind of the big concern. Yeah, so they're starting to
develop in the thirties, forties, fifties, and then UM an
important person named Leroy edgar Berney who was a Surgeon
(24:18):
General of the United States in the late fifties. UM
he got involved. He took an interest in the idea
of poison control centers, started National Poison Awareness Week, I believe,
and UM founded the National Clearinghouse for Poison Control Centers,
which is it took that database idea that started out
as index cards that Lewis Dolman created in his kitchen
(24:43):
and and really kind of professionalized it and made it
like this this big thing that everybody at all the
poison control centers around the country could contribute to UM
and making it this growing body of knowledge. And it
also became something of a magnet for grant and funding
and all that because everyone recognizes, you know this this
(25:04):
role of collecting data for toxicology is really important, and
that's where a lot of the funding, especially any federal
funding that UM poison Control center might get is kind
of aim toward. Yeah, and they were still at the
time using literal carbon paper to create multiple copies of
these things. I think in seventy four there was a
(25:26):
commercial toxicology data set put together finally kind of internets
called Poisondex. I love it. It's pretty good. UM still
in use today. But it's it was funny reading all
this stuff. It's like, I don't know if there's ever
been an institution that was more crying out for the
Internet to be born. Yeah, as far as just as
(25:48):
we'll see with consolidation and efficiencies and sharing of information.
I mean, the Internet changed every everything, uh, you know,
as far as this stuff goes for the better. But
UM poison Control role centers really like when you're mailing
uh pamphlets around the country and you're putting things together
with carbon paper and index cards and even microfiche, it's
(26:11):
like all they needed was the Internet to really make
it a robust system. Yeah, and they they did. I
think they added by hand the Internet, right, Like fifty
million incidents were eventually added a little by little. It's
a lot of hard work to what became known as
the National Poison Data System the MPDS, and that's still
(26:33):
in in uh in use today. So there's a ton
of information. Like every time you call poison control and
they start a case that the details of that case
end up being added to the poison data system. Um,
and so that database is growing, you know, every day.
Should we take that second break? I think? So, all right,
(26:54):
let's take another break, and we'll flash forward to the
wild seventies and eighties and see what was going on
in the poison control centers. Okay, chuck, it's the seventies
(27:23):
and anybody at the poison control centers are taking pills
themselves sometimes have to call in for help. Um. The
eighties weren't much better, and there's some other stuff going on. Yeah,
So in the seventies are um with the advent of
more people abusing pills, that became a larger focus of
(27:45):
poison control centers and the toxicology. I think in seventy
four was when the prescription pill bottles, and I think
we talked about this in the wasn't the title at all? No,
because that was over the counter prescription pills were in
nine and seventy four. As far as child proofing, and
that really made a marked difference over the next couple
(28:06):
of decades and kids being poisoned by by drugs. Yeah,
between seventy four and ninety six, the incidents of kids
dying from prescription pill poisonings decreased by So that was
a really good federal law. And what's interesting is because
of that law, and because of these information campaigns that
(28:29):
were drummed up to kind of like not just let
parents know about, you know, the hazards of of dangerous chemicals,
but also let kids know too, poisonings of children actually
declined so dramatically that there was a vacuum left open,
basically free time that toxicologists and poison centers had to
start investigating and better understanding adult poisoning incidents as well.
(28:52):
So there's kind of a shift in the seventies and
eighties in that sense. Yeah, and then in the sixties,
another one of my favorite things in pop culture history
happened is when they decided that, you know, we're using
the skull and crossbones to indicate something as poisonous, and
it turns out children love pirates, so that's probably sending
(29:12):
a mixed message. So we need to we need to
do something about this. So they mounted in Pittsburgh what's
called the Mr. Yuck y Uk campaign, and it was
to get a new logo basically that kids would not
want to go drink the product like because they thought
it was Pirates juice or whatever Pirates room. And uh
they did a little thing where they got all these
(29:34):
different logos and designs created, showed them to a bunch
of kids and said which ones do you least like?
Which one of these designs is yuck to you? And
they chose a picture of Martin Screwley's face. It's amazing. Wow,
that was quite a build up. I wish I could
(29:55):
read out all the different faces I have on this
page before I settled on Martin Screlly. Who else you
gotta give us? I don't really think I can, because
I took them off for reasons, because you can't go
after someone hard unless it's a guy like that, you know. Yeah,
I got to sure, sure, well, because I gotta know,
(30:16):
I forget about everybody else. I just need to know.
Uh No, it was actually what they called it was
Mr Yuck and it was the what you see now
a lot of times, is that sort of sick green um,
emoji face that's really upset. It looks like it's kind
of puky, and kids are like, I don't like that face.
So they said, well, I guess that's what we'll start using.
Then they said perfect, yeah, yeah that when that was
(30:38):
pretty successful too. Um. And then one of the other
things that really kind of happened during this time because
I guess poison control centers were a bit of a
victim of their own success. Um, there was this push
for consolidation. Um. There was just so many poison control
centers and now they were working thanks to the National
Poison Data System. They were like working in tandem with
(31:02):
one another, like they were sharing information and knowledge and
that kind of stuff. But there were just too many
of them. There's an unnecessary need or an unnecessary number.
And then even more inefficiently, despite the fact that there
were six hundred and fifty almost poison control centers in
the United States, only about half of the American population
(31:22):
was covered by a poison control center. Like, if you
were poisoned in Topeka, say you had to drive to
Kansas City and use the phone to call a poison
control center. I made that up, but I bet it's
pretty close. To accurate, and if those cities aren't correct,
the general sentiment is okay, everybody, so just layoff. Uh.
(31:44):
And even the most robust poison control centers were getting
like maybe ten calls a day, So that's just really
inefficient that. Like you said, they were sharing information. That
was good, but it was ironically sort of the lack
of budgeting that led them to start. It wasn't like
they said, hey, let's just start shrinking are the number
of these centers? They were kind of forced to and
(32:06):
then the writing was on the wall, like there's a
much more efficient way to do this, because we're talking
about call centers, you know. Yeah, is there anything that
Ronald Reagan couldn't do? Chuck? He never won an Academy Award,
I believe it. Have you seen any of his movies?
I haven't actually oh that he was not a great actor. No,
(32:29):
they weren't good particularly so yeah, I haven't seen in
those old westerns. So but the upshot of it, um, Well,
he was also in like hell Cats of the Navy,
that's where he met Nancy. And that was a World
War two picture. Okay, I didn't see that one either.
I didn't either. I've seen bits of it. How about that,
you know, I have to he wasn't a great actor.
(32:51):
But the upshot of it was UM that uh, that
there were fewer poison control centers, and that actually panned
out to be a good thing. It was surprising to
me was despite the fact that automated switching UM was
introduced in the seventies or the eighties at a T
and T invented in the seventies, introduced in the eighties,
it wasn't until two thousand one or two thousand two
(33:14):
that there is a single national eight hundred number for
poison control centers in the US. We should say that number.
I agree we should. If we that would be totally US.
I actually wrote it down on the front. Make sure. Yeah,
it's an eight hundred to two two one to two two.
(33:37):
You had to do it like a TV commercial. Okay,
do it. That's one eight hundred two two two one
to two two again one eight hundred to two two
one to two two. That's we're making a joke, but
that's what you're supposed to do. You know, three times
you gotta do it. I think by two thousand two
that number had shrunk to sixty four pccs in the US,
(33:59):
and that's when that that toll free number was introduced.
I'm sorry, it was in two thousand one, I think
that was introduced, and by that time it went from
six and fifty servicing half the United States to sixty
four servicing all of the United States. Yeah, I think
it's down to fifty five now. It's a lean, mean
efficiency machine, thank you all, thanks to that national number.
(34:21):
And so there's fifty five. That doesn't mean there's one
in every state, and five states have two. There's actually
some states that don't have any. Like I was saying,
there's a shared regional poison control center between Massachusetts and
Rhode Island, UM, but they there. So there's some states
that don't have their own. But everybody is served because
(34:42):
they can call that number. It gets routed to either
your closest poison control center or a poison control center
whose line isn't busy. Right then, because you're you know,
what you're ingesting in, um, you know, San Diego is
probably the same product that you would be jesting in,
you know, Burlington, Vermont. So it doesn't really matter who
(35:04):
you talked to. They're going to also be working from
the same data set, the National Poison Data System. So
whoever can get to the phone, UM, you're gonna be
talking to somebody who is either a doctor, UM, most
likely a nurse, or there are specialists a poison control
specialists UM, who's basically an information person. They're not a
(35:25):
they're not a healthcare provider, but they work under the
auspices of say like a nurse or a doctor at
the poison control center. And they are UM certified and
ongoing educated in toxicology, so they know what they're talking about. Yeah,
so you you could go work for a poison control
center if you wanted to and not go to medical
(35:45):
school or get medical training. You just get on the
job training. I think there's a lot of pharmacists too
to take these calls UM, and as efficiently as they
run it is maybe this is why, uh, they are
not like the day to day ops are still not
federally funded. UM. They do get some federal funding, like
through the CDC for data collection, and but a lot
(36:08):
of it comes through affiliated institutions, local health departments. UM.
Like I said a little from the CDC, and I
think the there was a there was another act. The
Poison Control Center Enhancement an Awareness Act provided. I think
they provided the funds for the number, but they're still like, hey,
you want to keep the lights on and keep it staffed.
(36:30):
You're not getting federally funded, which is interesting. I mean
it's working though, so I guess maybe there's something to
be said for getting the federal government out of this situation. Sure,
But at the same time, it makes you wonder like
what they could be doing if they weren't chronically underfunded,
Like if they didn't have to have bake sales, do
contract poisonings for local mobs or um asked for donations
(36:53):
like that. That that stat I got about one dollar
being invested in turning into thirteen dollars saved. That was
from a nation page for a poison control center. I mean,
come on, like those things should be you know, they
don't have to be like bloated or anything like that,
but they shouldn't be underfunded. That's just dumb. Yeah, And
I think, just so people don't misunderstand, I wasn't saying, like, good,
(37:16):
the federal government, you know, funds too many things, but
the fact that they are a lean, mean poison control machine.
It doesn't surprise me that the federal government is involved.
You know what I mean? Yeah, you're like, watch everyone
as I turned into a fiscal conservative before your very eyes.
Poof Um, alright, what what just happened? I don't know.
(37:39):
Did you convert back? No? I'm good. That was close.
So um, all right, what happened? You call a poison
control center. You're gonna get that call answered, like you
mentioned earlier, not necessarily by the one in Atlanta. Um,
if they're busy, they may broute you to just a
different one. They'll be very friendly, they'll keep you calm. Yeah,
(38:00):
that's the impression I have. I didn't actually call one
because I didn't want to. I was scared too, But
apparently you can just to get information if you want. Sure.
The first thing they're gonna do, though, is is route
your call, like if you're uh, if you just mistakenly
called the number, because the first one you could think
about after a car accident, they would say they would
(38:20):
route you to nine one one and say maybe like, boy,
you must have hit your head or something that way,
dumb you remembered eight hundred two two two one to
two two over nine one one? Are you kidding me?
Crazy things have happened. And also that's another thing too.
You can call nine one one and they can actually
route you to poison control centers. What goes both ways.
But I saw frequently they get calls from people who
(38:42):
are suffering or think they're suffering, like food poisoning. They
don't handle that kind of thing, but they will make
sure that you get to somebody who does. Right. So
they're gonna they're gonna talk you through that to begin
with reroute you if they need to. They're gonna start
immediately providing uh treatment advice, like if it's an a
real emergency, they're gonna they're gonna, you know, kind of
(39:03):
tell you what to do in the immediate like minutes
that you're on the phone, uh, consult with anyone else
they need to. And if you do need emergency care,
and we'll go over the stats here in a second
of how many actually do, which is not as many
as you would think. They will call the paramedics, they
will call ahead to the local e er. They're gonna say, hey,
you've got someone coming in. His name is Josh Clark.
(39:24):
He drank pine sall he thought it was apple juice.
And they'll say Josh Clark the podcaster. He's pretty dumb, apparently,
And they will arrange kind of for all that ahead
of time. They might even order test in the hospital,
maybe a pizza, maybe a pizza or some other treatment.
And they will even monitor and follow up on cases.
Yeah until a Yeah, they keep and even if you're
(39:46):
you know, if you're going to the hospital, they might,
um they might coordinate you being transferred to a specialized center. Um.
Like they are really, like I was saying, hands on.
And then even if you stay at home, if they're
like okay, this is good, You're you're fine, and like, uh, okay,
this is fine. You were overwhelmed by oven cleaner fumes
or something like that. Just you know, open the windows,
(40:07):
go outside. You're you know, take a few minutes, but
you're probably gonna be okay. I'm gonna stay on the
phone with you whatever. After you get off the phone,
they'll probably call you back in a half hour, an
hour or something like that to check on you, to
make sure you're still doing okay. Like I love poison
control specialists. I think they're just the bomb. You know what,
now I'm remembering we did call poison control one time
(40:32):
when my daughter was a baby. Totally forgot about this.
I don't even remember what it was. It turned out
to be nothing, and it wasn't. I mean, she didn't
drink anything or get poisoned, but we thought something might
have happened. So you call and I remember now this
triggered it because I remember them following up almost in
(40:52):
a child welfare sort of capacity. It felt like, like, uh,
did you do something. I remember getting grilled a little bit,
or Emily getting grilled, and that's being like, man, poison
control is no joke. Uh. I'll have to ask her
tonight when she gets home. But I definitely remember now
(41:14):
that that was just I remember the follow up part
of it. Wow. And the fact that my daughter left.
I remember that part. Yeah, that that part too. So um,
if you do call and you you know, they walk
you through the case and everything, like like we were saying,
they'll they'll follow up, and all of that stuff gets
logged into the National Poison Database and every eight minutes
(41:35):
across all those fifty five poison control centers, all of
their new information gets uploaded to the c d C,
where there's a team of toxicologists who are engaged in
toxo surveillance who scan all this stuff to look for
signs of say, an outbreak of disease, and outbreak of
poisoning is an outbreak of a new drug of abuse
(41:58):
that people are suddenly, um you thing, and that is
that is one of those big unsung functions of poison
control centers is they can be the group who notices
something that's happening all over the country to where you know,
the individual e rs it's just one person coming in,
but to these poison control centers, they are you know,
(42:20):
there's fifty people suddenly around the country who are dropping
dead from heroin. Well, that's not supposed to happen. What's
going on with the heroin. There's actually a case in
nineties six, I think, where poison control centers noticed that
that people were showing up to e R s in
the Northeast from heroin and they figured out that somebody
had added scopel I mean to heroin and that people
(42:42):
were having really bad reactions to it. And it was
the poison control centers who noticed that those are what
are called sentinel events, which is um a A there's
a signal, there's a there's a basically exactly that something
is afoot and um, they can help advise on how
to treat it. They can contact the CDC. There's a
(43:02):
bunch of stuff they can do. So they're like the
first line of defense and monitoring that kind of stuff. Yeah,
they've also in the last couple of decades been more
involved with helping to tackle environmental toxic exposure. So like
after the nine eleven attacks, obviously when there was you know,
so much like bad stuff that first responders were breathing in, UM,
(43:23):
the anthrax attacks that happened later on that year, UM,
stuff like that, they're more and more involved in. So
they're really more and more on the front lines of
sort of tackling bigger things than my podcast host partner
drank some pines all although that's up there. It tasted
so bad too, but man, it looked like it was
(43:44):
going to be some Apple two. Should we wind it
out with some stats. Yeah, let's Although there's one other
thing I want to say this. You know, we've been
touting it's it's uh, it's virtues and for for good reason.
But it's not a perfect system. Uh. And that was
evidenced in I think two thousand twelve, two thousand and sixteen.
I cannot remember, but there was, um they kind of
(44:04):
famously poison centers missed the um the rash of tide
pod poisonings that little kids were like, this thing looks delicious.
Let me neat this UM and that that there were
poisonings as a result, but there was no UH code
that could be entered in the National Poison Data system.
(44:25):
So the poison centers kind of knew what was going on,
but they weren't really able to share this information and
basically create this you know, Notice that this is a
sentinel event because of basically a clerical problem, a clerical issue,
and I think they've since solved it, but um, you know,
it's still an evolving, ongoing process hammering out how to
(44:45):
how to do this. But I think we were we
were right in generally, you know, trumpeting how great this
system is. Yeah, of course, UM, statistically a couple of
years ago, in nineteen and of all the calls, and
we're kids six and under, we're adults. Uh so I
(45:06):
guess that leaves what between If you were under six,
most of the poisonings were one in two year olds.
More boys are poison than girls. Um, if you're thirteen
and under, but more girls than boys if you're older
than which is sad because it indicates the spike in
(45:29):
self harm that poison control centers see as kids enter
the teenage years, and it is largely girls. It's not
exactly like girls just leaving boys in the dust, but
they're definitely in the majority. UM or they're in the lead,
I guess when it comes to self harm as far
as poison control statistics go. But UM, that's also seen
(45:50):
in the UH. The unintentional poisonings, like two percent of
kids six and under, UM, they're poisonings are unintentional. Adult
sixty are unintentional. With teenagers only thirty three percent of
the poison calls that come in are unintentional. The rest
are and are considered either self harm or it's like
(46:12):
a drug overdose, which they're not setting out to overdose
on drugs, but it's still considered intentional and the fact
that they intentionally injected themselves or snort died that thing,
or you know whatever else you do with drugs. Right. UH.
In nineteen I think a little more than seventy six
total were accidental UM eight percent total. We're almost nineteen
(46:39):
percent total were intentional. And I think sixty eight thousand
calls that your work for animals. We did mention that animals,
you know, they you still want to call your vet,
but if your animal ingested a toxic poison from your house,
you can call a poison control center to get kind
of quick information. And then I think I said earlier
Chuck that like you can just call and ask them
(47:02):
questions and they're totally cool with you. Like, there's a
decent number of calls that come in every year from
people saying like, hey, I want to take the St.
John's warp, but my doctor prescribed me this um you
know this heart medicine. Is that going to go okay
with that party? Those would be right. Those would be
the people that you would call and they will give
(47:24):
you the info that you need and if you're looking
around your house and wondering what's gonna do it. The
top culprits for accidental poisoning at eleven p eleven and
a half percent were cosmetics and personal care products. Imagine that, Well,
they're so frequently left in, you know, easy to grasp places.
They also smell good, they taste good one percent more
(47:46):
than household cleaners. And I think at nine percent. You've
got pain relief medications. Uh yeah, also algae blooms, toxic mushrooms,
sharden batteries. Those are also problematic too. I think though
sixty six of all cases are resolved at home, at
least they were in nineteen, so that is, you know,
(48:09):
it's a pretty decent majority. What's the number again, chuck
two two two one to two two. Yeah. You can
also go to poison help dot org. That's the Poison
Control Center's website, and you can actually report online too,
So there you go. Um, only if you have a
(48:29):
poisoning or a good question. I guess too. Um. But
since we said a good question, of course everybody, that
means it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call
this a couple of quick corrections. This is too for
your money. Hey guys, Dr John Vera Hoven my physical
(48:52):
metallurgy professor. Yeah, was from the Superior Iowa's eight not
University of Iowa. I'm sorry, goose that one up. We
have a proud metallurgy tradition, including the purest uranium used
in the original Manhattan Project experiment produced by Dr harveyville
Helm ghost cyclones, and that's from Bryan Sutton. Sorry about that, Brandon,
(49:17):
all of these cyclones out there, I apologize. And then
this is another one. This is from doctor Great Art,
a k a. Doctor Mark staff Brandle, docent and associate
Professor Emmett, emeritus in Switzerland, says there was much to
compliment about the art mystry show, but I have one
small complaint. Uh Caravaggio signature and the Malta aft altarpiece. Uh.
(49:43):
The f is very well known and not a mystery.
There are thousands of paintings by hundreds of artists with this.
It is uh. Indeed, it is certainly an abbreviation for facet.
The best translation would be was made by uh. This
email message e g. Is f Mark staff brand Old
wink wink. So he says that was really not a
(50:03):
mystery and that was a common thing so we did
not know that. Well, thank you Dr great Art, and
also thank you Brin for that. And also I think
I said that the KFC YUM Center was in Lexington
when it's well, you don't confuse those two. That's it's
very bad. No, I'm just gonna go ahead and say
I've been secretly trolling everybody that I'm well aware of
(50:25):
all of these very big there right. Yeah. Sorry everyone,
I'm so sorry. I probably won't be back after this.
Um so, I guess in the meantime, if you want
to send us an email or send it off to
stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you
(50:46):
Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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