Here's the thing: saving money with Geico was almost better than playing pick up basketball because there's that guy who joins your game He never passes the rock he certainly bricks theories and who can we have you and then put his hands up and say no foul, no foul, with Geico its ease the switch and save on car insurance. No need to fake an angel sprain because you're absolutely exhausted so we can save with Geiger. It's almost better than sports here buddy. We know that so many people who listen to our show have been trying to find some ways to fill some unexpected time at home as pretty much the whole comes He has gone into more protective mood in the face of the current pandemic, so we wanted to help out and we came up with a list of shows that are a little lighter in tone and maybe

no funny to help cannot live so spirits and also just provide an escape from the things that are going on. This is something we are calling our offbeat history playlist. It is going to drop as ten episodes into our shows feed. That is going to happen on today March nineteenth. They will all be labelled as our offbeat history playlist. So you'll know what that is when you say it, so we hope that it helps you get through this crazy I bet you enjoy welcome to stuff humanist and history glass. A production of I hurt radio allowing look under the party ass time, Drakes Evie Wilson, and then I'm Holly prying in case you ve, never heard our show before. This is absolutely two of US recordings. Now, with everyone involved in the process in their own homes current pan

and resulting quarantine, slash shelter in place, flash self isolation, slash social distancing instructions we have all been. Yeah so long time, listener and you're like. Why does this sound? Quite the same? That's why fear brand new? That's just a heads up, that's where we are right now and we, coincidentally, have a medical history week that we did not plan that just happens to be falling in line with all of this so the other day it was time to give our kittens their flee and tick prevention and then afterward. I was I D. Reading the back in a box will I was washing my hands and I notice that it said to contact poison control if swallowed and at first I thought why not just point what to do on the box. Instead of directing people to call poisoned well, but then I was like weirded poison control even come from. How did we get to the point of having there's one resource specifically for poisoning

so reliable and available that companies can printed on the labels of consumer products, especially in the U S were Holly and I are both in the health care service that is, staff, twenty four seven and of inaccessible to everyone for free, which is not a thing that exists in many other context. I mean there are some other twenty four hour hotlines, but like that's not often that anybody literally anyone, can call a medical professional twenty four hours a day and get an answer for free. The first service, like this was established in the Netherlands and nineteen, forty nine and day. They exist in a lot of countries around the world, particularly in the Americas, Western Europe and parts of the Middle EAST. According to the help organization. Forty seven percent of member states have a poisoned centre of some sort, but because the development of poison control centres in the? U S closely, parallel some other shit. In american history. That's really were focusing on with this story today, so you can really

define the word poisoning in a lot of different ways, but in general it is Emmy toxin, related injury. The toxin can come from kinds of sources, cleaning products, medications, mushrooms out in the yard, and things that we actually think of poisons lake in decides and rat poisons, sometimes will describe being envenom from something like a snake bite or insects. Staying also is being poisoned, met a lotta cases. Exposure to a small amount of one of these substances. Is that really dangerous? what it something like medicine that can be helpful rather than harmful, but in law amounts. Otherwise, harmless or even beneficial substances can become lethal, clear. We also use terms like son poisoning and food poisoning, but that's not really what were talk about here, Sir

he say: food poisoning were actually talking about an illness, not a poison that someone put in your food. People have been exposed to poisons, of course, throughout human history. There are talks, born illnesses that involve pathogens that can produce toxins and foods can be contaminated with toxic substances, but most the time when we say food poisoning were actually talking about an illness, not a point. And that someone put in your food people have been exposed to poisons, of course, throughout human history. There are two plants and fungi and metals all over the world. Most places have at least some species of venomous animals. People have also done things like making their drinking vessels or make up out of toxic metals like lead, but household toxins really started to proliferate, with industrial innovation, overtime, people's most likely sources of poisoning shifted from things like berries that they

gathered to eat to things like cleaning products and pharmaceuticals. In some parts of the world, governments passed laws to try to protect people from the most potentially dangerous products, starting in the nineteenth century. For it, people in the UK, the eighteen sixty eight pharmacy act restricted the sale of a specific set of poisons only licensed pharmacists could sell them and they have to keep a careful record of every sail. There was not a similar federal law in the US, but between one thousand eight hundred and seventy and one thousand eight hundred and ninety thirty. Three states adopted some kind of regulation on the sale of poison ivy Oh level. The first bills were introduced into Congress in eighteen. Seventy nine, but broad legislation didn't come along and so much later, Rennie actors also recognise the potential dangers involved with the products that they were making starting in wait: eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Manufacturers of things like rat poisons package, their prey

eggs in distinctively shaped bottles marked with things like skulls and crossbones, and the word poison to try to prevent accidents, Manufacturers also use textured glass bottles, so that people can tell what they were holding just by touch and they also develop safety caps. Most of these innovations weren't being used on products that were being sold directly to consumers, though They were being used on products that would be repackaged at a pharmacy or another store. So the idea was to keep the druggist from selling somebody something dangerous by accident, not to prevent the consumer at home from accidently hurting themselves or someone else. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the American Pharmaceutical Association and American Medical Association had each asked resolutions recommending clearer, labeling on dangerous household products, including medicines that could be harmful at high doses,

but in general, manufacturers resisted laws that required this kind of packaging and labeling on consumer products. They argued that people might not by a proper that was in a scary, looking bottle with a skull and crossbones on it. Another argument was that consumers might put their products in a differ container or reuse that skull and cross bone bottle too some other harmless substance and that could just creed all kinds of confusion. By the turn of the twentieth century. A couple of simultaneous developments dramatically increase the number of poisons that most people had in their homes. The germ theory of these had become more widely accepted and generally known, so people became kind of hyper aware of the idea of germs, investing their homes and infecting their families. Progressive reformers were also advocating ideas like good hygiene and cleanliness. There was just messaging about this kind of thing, all over the place and

articles and women's magazines and that everything as a result, manufacturers introduced a ton of cleaning and disinfecting products. Of which were toxic. They marketed these products, pray early to women as household time, savers and as a vital part of keeping a clean home women's magazines also cut up to the trend and published household cleaning and sanitation tips along consumer education, about safety like keeping these poor tax out of the reach of children, clearly labeling their packaging and sticking a pin through the stopper of toxic products. So it would be obvious which bottle you were about to open at about the same time, drug makers were also introducing all kinds of new medications. This is something that we ve talked about in previous episodes, including our two part or on the little mind, these new medications also became central source of poisoning with so many new sources of potential poisoning in people's homes. The number

accidental exposure, skyrocketed doctor. And other members of the medical community reported huge increases in the number of patients. They saw her and harmed by a poisonous product and because these pre, were brand new. Doctors often didn't know what to do to treat these exposures during the Prague of era muck raking. Journalists also tried to expose the dangers of these products, especially if they were poorly labelled or incorrectly handled run in parallel with this focus on household poisons, was a similar focus on food safety. This included the safety and quality of the foods themselves, the cleanliness and safety of facilities like slaughterhouses and packing houses and the safety of food additives. As part of all this doctor Harvey Washington Wily studied the effects of food additives by feeding things to a team of volunteers who came to be known as the poison squad. There's an episode in our archive about

this. It's called a pure food father and his poison squad, and it came out in May of twenty. Eleven is shorter than are. Episodes typically are today and I haven't found a good companion to kind of parrot with, so we haven't lighted up as a Saturday classic as ever. Yet all of us together, read through the passage pure food and drugs ACT of nineteen o six, which is also known as the wily act. Most of its provisions were focused. On food and food additives, but it also included labeling requirements for drugs and it forbade patent medicines in interstate calmer, the wily act was one of the first consumer protection laws of its kind in well. It did. Introduce some requirements for drugs and drug labeling, it did really address the many toxic household products that were being introduced into the market, then in nineteen, twenty six bills were introduced in the house and the sun

that required labeling for a list of caustic substances included several acids: ammonia, silver, nitrate and soda I dropped side also known as lie as part of this shovel aid. Jackson of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia testified before the Senate about injuries that he had witnessed from these types of substances. In his practice, one case was a child who swallowed a product called clean all and that had caused terrible damage to his esophagus. When the mother was asked why, she had given this product to her child. She said she had not known. It was poison in his testimony. Jackson said quote: I got her to bring me a cam, and here you can see on this, can that I have here, which was by in the stores that there is now only no poison label whatever on it, but it says ass, not injured the finest fabric or the most delicate skin. Now huh,

Could you expect any mother to think that this thing was dangerous after this and other testimony and nineteen twenty seven President Calvin Coolidge signed the caustic poison act into law. This act required alive of caustic, poisons to be clearly labelled with the warnings, in contrast in colors, also in the largest type that was on the package or the bottle, the product was in There was a really any data. Being kept on household poisonings at this point, but anecdotally, justice, labeling requirements significantly reduce the number of poisoning deaths that were happening house poisoning was still a problem, though, and it was not long after this- that the first steps were made towards them and control system that exists today. We'll talk, but that, more after we pause for a sponsor break. This episode of stuffy missing Glass is brought to you by bombast working now can

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Calm, slash history class today and get twenty percent off your first purchase. That's b, o n B s, dot com, flash history class for twenty percent off barbours dot com, slash history, class. It's a trying time that challenges all of our basic assumptions. However, one thing the bridge Thus, altogether is our common humanity now than ever. Teams must come together and work together to solve big challenges and Trillo is here to help trail part of Atlanteans collaborative sweet as an apple, easy to understand, visual format plus tons of feature that make working with your team, functional and just plain fun, of all shapes and sizes in companies like Google, fender and even Cassio all use Trillo to collaborate and get work done with Trillo you can with your team, wherever you are, whether its at home or in an office no matter what device you're using computer tablet or phone trial

six across all of them, so you can up to date on all the things your team cares about. Keep your workflow going from wherever you are with Trillo, try trouble for free and learn more at Trillo dot com. There. T r e, o, o o dotcom trillo dot com Overall manufacturers supported the caustic poison act when it was signed into law in nineteen twenty seven. It replaced a previous and sometimes really contradictory, hodgepodge of state regulations on labeling. So it kind of made things easier from the manufacturers perspective, but they resisted broader regulations, including a federal volatile poisons act that was proposed in the nineteen thirties. This would have introduced a more specific labeling standards

including marking poisonous products with a skull and crossbones something that had also been proposed. Earlier on again, manufacturers argued that this labeling would just keep people from buying the products this happening during the great depression and the chemical manufacturing industry was one of the very few that has actually increased production so just leaders were worried that if customers did become reluctant to buy these products as manufacturers feared, they would it would harm one of the few industries that was not seriously struggling. Meanwhile,

In the late nineteenth twenties and early nineteen thirty's, multiple doctors published papers on the patterns of poisoning that they were seeing in their practice and nineteen. Twenty seven p p Vincent reported that well over half the ISAF Gilles strictures that he had seen at the Mayo clinic had been caused because someone had swallowed lie. Doktor J Arena of Duke University published similar findings in nineteen, thirty, nine. In some cases, the concentration of lie a product had not been high enough for the labeling that was required under the caustic poison act also in the nineteen thirties. Louis good omen, who was a pharmacist and Chicago who also had a chemistry degree, was also called. Information on poisonings and the products and substances that had caused them. He started. Documenting products and their ingredients on index cards, including what to do in cases of exposure to those ingredients. Creator records for at least nine thousand products

Eventually, he also started collecting stomach contents and other samples from poisoning victims for analysis. Through this work, Godalming became the go to person for poisoning cases in Chicago the pharmacy at Saint Luke Hospital, where he worked was directly across from the emergency room. So it made it really easy for your doctors to discuss asking questions, but he also took calls at home and elsewhere twenty four hours a day as word spread beyond Saint Legs Hospital of what he was doing. Doctors from other Chicago facilities started to call him for advice and information as well and eventually got to the point that people from other states. I would call a rounded Chicago trying to find this pharmacist that they'd heard about who knew so much about poisoning as get all then was becoming a one man poisoned hotline, the Lee oh and regulatory landscape in the United States, was continuing to evolve. The food drug and Cosmetic ACT was passed in nineteen thirty eight, which require

drugs to be evaluated for safety by the Food and Drug Administration in nineteen for Seven, the federal insecticide fungicide and rodent aside ACT required these products to be registered with the FDA, this law updated in earlier version that was passed in nineteen ten among are things it required these. To be in child resistant packaging and clearly labelled with an appropriate warning. Even with these kinds of steps, though, by the nineteen fifties, as many as four hundred children a year were dying from poisoning, there were also adult poisoning victims, as well, of course, including incident had multiple victims, for example, on November 18th, one thousand nine hundred and forty two, a patient at Oregon State Hospital, was helping out in the kitchen. He accidentally brought the kooks cockroach poison instead of the powdered milk that they had asked for these two step,

says like visually very similar and had been stored near each other. Forty seven patients died- and this is something where the chemical manufacturing industry had resisted- calls for these kinds of products to be tempted rather than white and easily mistaken, for something like Salter Sugar, powdered milk. By this point local experts just could not keep up with the massive increase in the number of potentially dangerous products. And what to do If someone was exposed to them about two hundred fifty thousand drugs and household products had been introduced since world war. Two and there wasn't Any kind of centralized system for keeping up with all of these products therein greedy and their antidotes accidents place disease as the leading cause of death in children, and, according to

survey of members of the American Academy of Pediatrics about half of the accidents that pediatricians were treating were poisonings in nineteen. Fifty three Doktor Edward Press and Louis Godalming established the first formal poison control centre, as was in Chicago toy the Illinois chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. That Illinois, Department of Public Health and seven Chicago area hospitals were also part of this project. They provided information on poisoning as in their antidote to doctors who were treating affected patients Illinois, state Toxicology laboratory was also part of this project. Toxicology was still a pretty new field at this point that lab analyzed, and he said events that were collected a number of sources also credit. Some of this work to an unnamed secretary who had come. All the area emergency rooms every morning and ask what children who had been admitted for poisoning had eaten. She would then contact

manufacturers of those substances to try to get them to this. Who's the ingredients, and she would document all this information on an index card. I wish I could find out more about this person. I found several references to this unnamed secretary and no other details, the Chicago poison control sensors started with a pilot program that ran from November 15th, one thousand nine hundred and fifty three to March tenth, one thousand nine hundred and fifty four, and it was so successful that other hospitals started their own program within a year there were eleven poison control centres, just in Chicago and the surrounding area. In December of nineteen, fifty four Edward Press and Doktor Robert Melons published a paper titled a poisoning control programme in the American Journal of Public Health. This paper does I've poisoning as a major public health concern before this bribing, how the poison control centres were operating and what they had found. During that time, the paper

also made recommendations for future poison control centres. Based on that experience the following year, the American Academy of Pediatrics, published a reference book called accident oh poisoning. In childhood, soon poison control centres were expanding beyond Chicago in nineteen. Fifty seven, the? U S surgeon general established the National Clearing house for poison control centres. This was the federal government's first attempt to try to provide some standardized resources for poison control and to collect data on poisonings to report back to the government, the clearing house produced a set of index cards with information on potentially hazardous drugs, chemicals and household products and plants, along with their to doubts, and it also published a monthly newsletter, as well as a statistical report of all that collected data from each year. Also, in nineteen fifty seven, the first edition of the clinical toxicology of commercial products was published and quickly became a standard reference work,

looted basic first aid and emergency treatment, followed by an ingredient index that listed more than one thousand substances ranked on us he'll from one to six, according to their toxicity with. Why and being nearly harmless and six being extremely toxic. It had us operate index for the trade names of products that use these ingredients along with this items and treatments for exposure to a range of different compounds. The American Association of Poison Control centres was founded and nineteen fifty eight, and by that point the number of poison control centres in the United States had grown to at least Two hundred and sixty five on April 20th, one thousand nine hundred and fifty nine Arthur S. Fleming, the Secretary of Health released a statement the poisoning data that the National Clearing House for poison control centres had compiled between July, one thousand, nine hundred and fifty six and April one thousand nine hundred and fifty eight

the clearing house, reported that almost five hundred child deaths and six hundred thousand nonfatal poisonings were happening per year, which overwhelmingly occurred at home. The eighty five percent of the people affected were children under the age of five, and most of Those were between the ages of one in two, although many of household products were involved, a major source of poisoning with candied aspirin, which was achieved. Bill formula developed to be palatable to children and was entered. Used in nineteen. Forty seven Fleming statement gave some examples of the types of poison exposure that lead calls to a poison control centre and, most of the time, it was something that had taken just a moment when a parent or other caregivers back was turned, He also noted the need for the public to be better educated, about poisons and poison safety measures, the cases that the clearing house had compiled involved parents who had waited hours or days after a child,

was exposed to a poison to seek help. Instead of do it right away. Other me, your contributors to accidental poisonings were products that had been transferred to food came, or other containers, rather than being kept original packaging, as well as hazardous products that have been kept in easy reach of children. It was about this time that poison control centres started working directly with the public, rather than mostly providing information to doctors and we'll get to that after another, quickly it's a break, hey everybody. We know that so many people who listen to our show have been trying to find some ways to fill some unexpected time at home as pretty much the whole comes. He has gone into more protective mood in the face of the current pandemic, so We wanted to help out, and we came up with a list of shows that are a little lighter in tone and maybe

No funny help cannot live so spirits and also just provide an escape from the things that are going on. This is something we are calling our offbeat history playlist. It is going to drop as ten episodes into our shows feed that is going to happen on. Thursday March nineteenth they will all be labelled as our offbeat history playlist. So you'll know what that is when you say it, so we hope that it helps you get through this crazy. I bet you enjoy back in your wealth, the run burgundy part returns of the brand new season and I'm pulling out all the stops in the past. You ve heard me speak and do a minimal amount of listening with luminaries from all walks of life. I spoke at everyone from various Dinah San Diego jig, as that for a tap story of audio entertainment. This season is going to be even more excited. We ve got some great gaslight.

So far we booked a couple of guys for the band weighing Chung. That is it seriously. I'm not gonna lie. We are under book. It's a problem. I had to call the weighing John guys myself their friends and doing me a big favor. So anyone listening to this help me out. If you know Timothy Shallow may tell him to return. My damn calls already listen to on burgundy part, gas, on the eye, heart, radio, app apple pie, guess or where ever you get your pockets. The rapid expansion of poison control centres and the nineteen fifty and sixty is what kind of a tangle they were, definitely giving medical staff and the general public and on call resource to use and cases of potential poisoning. That was good.

In many places where they operated. They were also educating consumers about household safety. Things like keeping toxic products in their original packaging and keeping them walked out of the reach of children. Also, useful, but at the same time, most of these centres were being established at hospitals with the hospital. Trying to staff them from their existing emergency rooms, the idea was that this would be an easy addition to a department that was already staff. Twenty four seven was people who were used to the high stress world of emergency medicine from the hospital point of view, adding a poison control centre might and bring in more patience as the centre referred emergencies to the hospitals, own e r, as poison control centre, restarted marketing their services directly to the public. They also became a positive source of pr for the hospitals where they were operating as more and more people became aware of the dangers of poisoning and the existence of poison control centres. Me

And more hospitals opened them in part, motivated by the idea of good publicity. In practice, though, this not always work out. There were some centres that didn't get a lot of calls. Either they worked well. Publicized, or they were in a city that had multiple other poison control centres, or they were location with a small population, but in many poison control centres found that they had to have a dedicated twenty four hours staff, just for the calls about poisonings, there are just two: any. He calls to added into the existing emergency departments, work how it goes for so many projects that someone says you can do add the centre- and I think that this also meant that there was no- real pattern patterns, aware these poison control centres were being established. Some cities had more than a hundred centres, scattered across all their hospitals, in pharmacies and other medical practices. Others had not enough to really sir,

their whole community or they had no poison control centre at all. Even though the nineteen Fifty's, seen the establishment of the National Clearing House for poison control centres and the publication of the clinical toxicology of commercial products. There also wasn't a lot of standardization among all these centres. The quality of You could be vastly different, depending on which sundry you called and who answered the phone and This is where there were multiple centres operating within the same city. Those centres were off competing with each other, each with their own phone number logos, warning, stickers and education materials which could often cause confusion, also law. One of the reasons the hospitals had started. Establishing poison control centres was to try to bring a new patients to the e r when people called the poison control centre for advice and were told to go to. The are often happened when poisoning

for all centre started working directly with the public, rather than being primarily a resource for doctors. They were essentially acting as tree eyes. The person answering the phone would find out what product someone had been exposed to along with their age and wait lot of cases. After doing the math, with that it turned out that the dose was not dangerous or that getting it could be managed at home. Visits to the e r for poisoning went down not up, This could be a really challenging job as well. The poison control staff were often talking to panic Parents who were holding or in the same room with crying children, call often involved a lay person who needed to be talk through a specific set of first aid steps It's in the early days of these centres could involve trying to induce vomiting, sir. Of the calls that came in also involve people who were either considering harming themselves with the poison or had already tried to do so. Meanwhile, the

federal government, continued to add new regulations regarding toxic products. The hazardous substances labeling act was passed in July of nineteen sixty and that required specific labeling of toxic, corrosive irritant, flammable strong sensitize or pressure generating substances, as well as language like danger. War being caution and keep out of reach of children in nineteen sixty one. Those eleven poison control centres that have been established in the Chicago area were concerned, David down into one facility at Presbyterian, Saint Luke Hospital, which got about fifty five thousand

calls annually that same year. President John F Kennedy named the third full week of March as National Poison Prevention Week, which is something I learned while researching this podcast. So it is a weird coincidence that this episode is coming out immediately after it ended. This started with Homer a George. She was a pharmacist from Missouri George had convinced his town and then the state of Missouri to establish a poison prevention week before advocating for one to be established. Federal level national Poison Prevention week was first observed March 18th through 24th, one thousand nine hundred and sixty two one thousand nine hundred and sixty six, Dr James Goddard, commissioner of the FDA, convened a meeting of aspirin producers entirely agreed to restrict baby aspirin packaging to a non lethal dose. Each packet would contain no more than thirty six tablets of eighty one milligrams apiece. So if a child did consume a whole bottle, it was not likely to be fatal.

Formal legislation along these lines, followed with the Poison Prevention Packaging ACT in nineteen. Seventy, which required child resistant packaging. Other laws about child resistant packaging, especially drug packaging, followed from mare. All of these things are, of course, imperfect solutions right, because a packaging that is harder for a child to get into is also harder for many disabled and elderly people to get into bed. It's one of those things where you have to evaluate the risks involved with The packaging medical specialities involved with studying entreating poisoning were also evolving during all this time. The American Academy of Clinical Toxicology and the American College of Emergency physicians, or both founded and nineteen the eight by that point there were hundreds of poison control centres all over the country and multiple, competing mascots, including my favorite. Mr Yuck officer, ugh Pinky, the elephant uncle

earth and no sign up the snake, with no sign of being poison spelled backwards, the most why, None of these is probably Holly's favorite. Mr Yuck Hughes development started in nineteen. Seventy Doktor, Richard Moriarty of Pittsburgh. Children's hospital wanted some kind of child friendly warning or mass got for toxic products. One reason for this was that the Pittsburgh pirates had adopted the skull and crossbones as their logo, which understandably might cause some confusion for children who can see the logo, but not necessarily reed or get there. Context of what's involved, like yea Sports Thumb, Maria he started by asking children what would happen to them if they got into poison and there sponsors were that their parents would yell at them. They would get sick or they die, and he wanted to find an image that sir to suggest these ideas, which led to a design contest sponsored by the Pittsburgh poisoned centre

and that was won by fourth greater windy Brown, a commercial was released in nineteen. Seventy one with a Mr Yuck, his mean mystery up. His green theme song Pittsburgh Children's hospital made miss four stickers available to other poison control centres and two pair through the National Poison Centre network established in nineteen seventy three. Yet I did not up anywhere near Pittsburgh. I grew up in North Carolina. I could still sing you the entire Mr Yuck theme song. I won't as I do not single more developments followed after this. Of course, the consumer product Safety Commission was established and nineteen seventy two, so that was a year before that poison Control Centre network was established, The emergency Medical Systems ACT was enacted and nineteen seventy three and that authorized grants to establish a more robust nationwide emergency services system,

nineteen, seventy eight national animal poison Control Centre was established at the University of Illinois, Champagne, Urbana, College of Veterinary medicine. Started fielding calls about animal exposure to toxic and caustic chemicals as well as substances that are safer, most humans, but Tom. Too many animals such as chocolate, grapes and lilies. I have a friend who is a cat wound up in the veterinary hospital not long ago, at all after eating Somalis, I that same year, the number of poison control centres for humans reached its peak with more than six hundred sixty in the. U S, its territories, many of them, as we talked about earlier overlapped in their coverage area. Some got very few calls. There are also concerns about training and consistency at some of the smallest centres that had the least funding and training on a lot of centres overall had really struggled to get adequate funding throughout their whole history. Hospitals also

concerned about liability, especially for Arizona. Jury ordered us. Eight funded poison control centre to pay. A more than three million dollars settlement. This happy and after a nurse at a medical practice accidentally gave a patient liquid cocaine rather Liquid LCD Benefits, which had been stored on a shelf. Next to each other, the poison control centre and the doktor both had outdated information about just how toxic liquid cocaine could be poison. Control Centre was ordered to pay a larger settlement because it had not specifically told the doctor that the patient should be taken to the hospital

All of this, combined with the challenges we talked about earlier, to prompt hospitals to start closing down and consolidating their poison control centres and the nineteen eighties over the next decade, or so, the poison control Centre shifted from this overlapping assortment of centres at multiple hospital, sometimes in the same region, to a more government funded regional model. The national clearing house for poison control centres stops collecting poisoning data and that responsibility move shoe the toxic exposure surveillance system or tests in nineteen. Eighty three at that point, childhood deaths from accidental poisoning had dropped to a quarter of what they had been twenty years before, in February of two thousand President Bill Clinton signed the Poison control centre, enhancement and awareness act. This act provided federal funding for poison control centres. The provisions for the establishment of a national toll free number

the nation wide number of one eight hundred to two to one to two too, was love in January of two thousand to into and three, the federal government, we authorize the poison control centre, enhancement and Awareness ACT, citing the need for emergency preparedness following the nine eleven terrorist attacks and the anthrax attack them. Followed in October of two thousand one today, the United States. There are about fifty five regional poison control centres that serve the entire country through that one eight hundred number, when people call the number it rots them to their regional centre is also now an online trial tool at web poison control, dot, Org, the regional centres, staff generally includes pharmacists board, certified toxicologists and certified specialists and poison information or Csp. I, and these centres take about four million.

Calls a year at this point: the poison control network as the only real time healthcare database. That applies to the whole. U S: population centres, also provide education to the public, as well as monitoring and reporting events that might suggest some kind of wide scale exposure or a deliberate chemical attack. Most of the people who call in a poison control centres today are lay people about. Fifteen percent are medical personnel more than seventy percent of the people, who call poison control not wind at meeting to go to the hospital numbers are really all over the place about how much money. This saves purred dollar of money that is invested into the system. But it should be noted that this is not just savings on the patients part like people who are able to treat the the

potential poisoning at home save a lot of money by not having to go to the emergency room, but a lot of people who need to call into the poison control system, for whatever reason are covered by Medicare, Medicaid or estate children's health insurance programme. So there are savings, for these programmes also, and for the people who do need to go to the hospital, there is some data that suggests that their stays tend to be shorter because of the media. First aid and recommendations from poison control. Also, I just want to know that I am not the only person he was had this whole experience. I've had to go and where did poison control come from Merely that exact scenario. Inspired a radio lab episode on poison control that came out in twenty eight team that was after the reporter involves, had to call poisoned control for their child, controlled the poison.

Tracy yeah do you have non poisonous nontoxic email forgot. What do I do? This is from Doug Doug, says: Dear Holly and Tracy. I just listen to your two part episode on insulin early in the first episode you mentioned that a diabetics urine was sweet and wondered who verified that when I was young, my dad a doctor told us about a standard practice in medical school where they instructor would dip, is finger into a bigger of diabetic urine and demonstrate tasting it. The beaker was then passed around the room, reach student to taste afterward, the instructor would tell them they had learned to things. One the year and of a diabetic is sweet to the power of observation, because the instructor dipped his middle finger into the urine and tasted his index finger

this scenario is used in the nineteen eighty two movie, young doctors and love roughly twenty years after I heard about it from my bad, plays out a little differently in the movie, but the concept is the same. Thank you for your always interesting podcast. I, like the addition of your behind the scenes. Many I really enjoy the more casual discussion of the weeks topics tug. Thank you Doug. I wanted to keep this email number one because it was funny to me number two. We ve got a couple of notes. Are people who remember this same urine, tasting scene in the tv show out Lander, which, yes, I also remember, being a person who watches Atlanta and instead make it into the absurd for whatever you So anyway, if you'd like to write to us about this or any other podcast, that's currently the best way to reach us rather than physical mail, as we are all working from home for the time being so weary history pancakes

that I hurt radio dot com and then were also Oliver social media at missed in history. That's real thunder Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and instigate, and you can subscribe to our show on We applaud ghastly. I hurt radio happen anywhere else, forgetting about gas stuff. You missed and district class the production, I have made for more pod cap I heard radio misery by her radio, have added my cans or wherever you listen to your favorite chose to Monday Colombia we need to rebuild the epic fiction, podcast Human Bay returns, are we met before

Oh, yes, you have no choice, it has to be done. What have you done? Listen only, I already allow applicable costs or wherever you get, your pull costs higher, one? It's Katy correct? I use my podcast question as a platform to explore the big issues we face in these crazy times and right there's no crazier time and no bigger issue than the corona virus, which is why we're switching gears and pushing a regular reported episodes to this summer. In the meantime, we're going to state based on the corona virus. Talking to the expert, So you can really understand. What's going on, I know it's overwhelming, but we can get through this together, you can live than to next question on the eye. Radio, app apple podcast or wherever you get your favorite show

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