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Poison Control Centers: A Good Thing · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck, Brian and Jerry's over here,
0:17
Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know. Yeah, how are
0:25
Speaker 1: you doing? Man? I'm great. I'm have not been poisoned yet.
0:32
Speaker 1: I have no need to get on the phone and
0:34
Speaker 1: call an expert at this point. Luckily, my daughter has
0:39
Speaker 1: never been poisoned, although that's a big concern for parents. Yeah,
0:43
Speaker 1: no joke here, No, not joking, nothing funny about poisoned children,
0:47
Speaker 1: unless you're talking about little young Brett Michael's. He was
0:51
Speaker 1: he was a stitch in a cut up. Oh oh
0:54
Speaker 1: oh wow, a little ricky rocket. I was confused, Um, tickled,
1:01
Speaker 1: and then disappointed, all within like half of a second. Oh,
1:04
Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna stay disappointed in the joke,
1:06
Speaker 1: because that's the fourth stage of recovery. I thought it
1:09
Speaker 1: was great. Maybe like a month from now, I'll be like,
1:11
Speaker 1: you know, that jokes about poison wasn't that great? But
1:15
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe I'll also be laughing about it years later.
1:18
Speaker 1: For example, UM, I watched uh F the other day
1:22
Speaker 1: for the first time in a little while. I haven't
1:24
Speaker 1: seen it, and just today, out of the blue apropos
1:29
Speaker 1: of nothing, I cracked myself up thinking about one of
1:32
Speaker 1: the jokes. So, uh, there's a segment about Conan the librarian.
1:38
Speaker 1: Somebody asks for a book on astronomy, and Conan grabs
1:42
Speaker 1: the guy and lifts him up by his shirt and
1:44
Speaker 1: he goes, don't you know the Dewey decimal system was
1:49
Speaker 1: in it? It was a really good approximation of Arnold.
1:52
Speaker 1: For a second, I thought it was Bruce Campbell and
1:54
Speaker 1: I actually looked on the credits and it's not. But um,
1:57
Speaker 1: it looks exactly like Bruce Campbell doing Arnold Schwarzenegger. You
2:02
Speaker 1: know what I watched the other day for the I
2:04
Speaker 1: think first time ever did we talk about this pumping iron? Yeah,
2:09
Speaker 1: I've never watched it. I think we might have already
2:11
Speaker 1: spoken about this, though I did on the show even
2:16
Speaker 1: maybe No, no, no, definitely not within weeks. No, no, unless,
2:20
Speaker 1: like my brain is sloshing around, probably has everyone out
2:24
Speaker 1: there's going, Yes, Josh, you mentioned it three episodes ago,
2:26
Speaker 1: and you're both stupid. It rings a bell that you
2:29
Speaker 1: did mention it, but it was not weeks ago. I
2:31
Speaker 1: think you're confusing your other podcast, Movie Crush. I don't
2:35
Speaker 1: think so, because one of them is good and one
2:37
Speaker 1: of them is you're crazy cutting up. But you're talking
2:40
Speaker 1: about a movie and it couldn't possibly have been mentioned
2:44
Speaker 1: on the movie podcast. Is what your position is? Maybe
2:48
Speaker 1: it was okay, but Movie Crushes the good podcast. Oh well,
2:55
Speaker 1: I resubmit my you're crazy. I'm sorry. I just poisoned you. Yeah,
3:04
Speaker 1: and a million listeners, So maybe we should just get
3:06
Speaker 1: going on this. I thought this was really interesting. I
3:08
Speaker 1: think we should take an ad break. No. So yeah,
3:14
Speaker 1: it was interesting and it wasn't like based on anything
3:17
Speaker 1: but curiosity. Like I realized that I had no idea
3:22
Speaker 1: how poison control centers worked, Like like you, I have
3:24
Speaker 1: never had occasion to call one. Luckily, um, but they're there,
3:29
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like a really great thing that
3:31
Speaker 1: they're there and that they are, um there to keep
3:36
Speaker 1: scared parents from you know, freaking out because their kids
3:39
Speaker 1: ate something weird or their dog ate something weird, or
3:43
Speaker 1: you know, they ate something weird. Um, and to say
3:47
Speaker 1: basically say like no, you need to get to a hospital.
3:50
Speaker 1: And not only that, I'm gonna help you throughout this
3:52
Speaker 1: process of going to the hospital and staying at the hospital,
3:55
Speaker 1: because poison control centers are like the most hands on
3:59
Speaker 1: remote medical discipline there is. Yeah, and if it was
4:03
Speaker 1: a hundred and change years ago, you'd be lucky if
4:08
Speaker 1: whatever you accidentally drank in your house even has ingredients
4:12
Speaker 1: listed on it. And if it did have ingredients, you'd
4:15
Speaker 1: be lucky if they were accurate or truthful, because no
4:18
Speaker 1: one cared and you wouldn't be able to call anyone
4:22
Speaker 1: to help. And if you went to your local, you know,
4:26
Speaker 1: community doctor, good luck if they're even available a hundred
4:29
Speaker 1: and ten years ago. And if they were, they'd probably
4:32
Speaker 1: be like, jeez, I don't really know what to do
4:35
Speaker 1: except maybe try and make you vomit. Yeah, nothing more
4:38
Speaker 1: than a two bit bumpkin was what you had for
4:40
Speaker 1: a doctor back then, you drinking sody pop. Yeah, exactly,
4:44
Speaker 1: the sassafras um. But and and so you might say, well, like,
4:49
Speaker 1: what is a hundred years ago matter? Why not further back?
4:52
Speaker 1: That's a really good question, And the answer that is
4:55
Speaker 1: that poison control is a fairly recent invention, not because
4:59
Speaker 1: people just thought of it, but because we didn't really
5:01
Speaker 1: need it before, because we didn't really have poisons around
5:06
Speaker 1: us prior to about the Industrial Revolution, Like the closest
5:10
Speaker 1: thing you had to poison was a snake that made
5:13
Speaker 1: its way into your house. You definitely didn't open your
5:16
Speaker 1: your cabinet beneath the sink, probably because you didn't have
5:19
Speaker 1: a sink, but also even if you had a sink,
5:22
Speaker 1: you didn't have like household chemicals at your disposal until
5:25
Speaker 1: industrialization came around. Yeah, I mean before that, there might
5:29
Speaker 1: have been you know, you could extract some poison type
5:32
Speaker 1: things from plants and maybe got something at a at
5:35
Speaker 1: a traveling kind of snake oil situation, but it wasn't
5:39
Speaker 1: like they were on the general store shelves all over
5:42
Speaker 1: the country and then later stores, like you said, until
5:46
Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution when we said, hey, it turns out
5:49
Speaker 1: that we can use chemicals. Uh, and they they can
5:52
Speaker 1: be very handy. They are dangerous, but I mean, who
5:55
Speaker 1: would who would drink a bottle of floor cleaner? People
5:58
Speaker 1: know better than that, Right, We don't have to tell that,
6:00
Speaker 1: do we You're right exactly? Um? They said, actually, yes,
6:04
Speaker 1: we totally do. And I saw actually a comparison on
6:07
Speaker 1: a poisoned website that's still today. People apparently get poisoned,
6:12
Speaker 1: including adults, from accidentally drinking things that they think are
6:15
Speaker 1: other safer things. And they had bottles of stuff next
6:20
Speaker 1: to bottles of others, like food, and you're like, wow,
6:23
Speaker 1: that really actually does bear a passing resemblance, Like pine
6:26
Speaker 1: salt looks a lot like apple juice when you put
6:29
Speaker 1: it next to a bottle of apple juice. And there's
6:31
Speaker 1: a brand of apple juice that looks roughly like the
6:35
Speaker 1: pine salt label. Yeah, it's not so I think you
6:40
Speaker 1: could drink um. The most you would do is probably
6:42
Speaker 1: embarrass yourself. But I see things that look like toothpaste
6:46
Speaker 1: a lot that you would not want to put on
6:49
Speaker 1: a toothbrush and put in your mouth. What are you
6:51
Speaker 1: hanging around with that looks like toothpaste that you wouldn't
6:54
Speaker 1: want to brush your teeth with? Well, I mean there's
6:55
Speaker 1: all sorts of I mean, like lubes you looving en
6:58
Speaker 1: up like calamine, and you know, I feel like I've
7:03
Speaker 1: seen some other creams and things that look you know,
7:06
Speaker 1: because that's a it's an obviously a good way to
7:08
Speaker 1: carry it, toothpaste like thing, and it is an old
7:11
Speaker 1: tube like that, but a lot of them look alike.
7:14
Speaker 1: Is my point. I see, So do you have to
7:16
Speaker 1: be like, don't brush your teeth with this reminder to
7:20
Speaker 1: use a children's toothpaste so it has big dinosaurs on it.
7:24
Speaker 1: I think it wasn't so much back in the day.
7:26
Speaker 1: Like now today, there's like basically no excuse because we
7:29
Speaker 1: spent the last hundred years being um inculcated into the
7:33
Speaker 1: idea that there are a lot of dangerous things in
7:36
Speaker 1: our everyday lives. But you know, back in the day,
7:40
Speaker 1: this was all brand new to people and they just
7:43
Speaker 1: didn't know. Um. Sometimes manufacturers actually didn't know, and they
7:48
Speaker 1: found out the hard way. And because people were suffering
7:52
Speaker 1: from this, it was obvious that there was a need
7:54
Speaker 1: for people to say, Okay, we need to start studying
7:57
Speaker 1: these things a little more. And a lot of the
8:00
Speaker 1: um great great meaning like really fantastic and triumphant government
8:06
Speaker 1: bureaucracies here in the United States arose from protecting like
8:10
Speaker 1: everyday people from the stuff that they were eating his
8:13
Speaker 1: food or using his medicines, like things you're supposed to
8:15
Speaker 1: be able to trust. They couldn't trust back then. So
8:19
Speaker 1: entire sub disciplines of the medical profession kind of developed
8:23
Speaker 1: to protect people from those things. Yeah, it was mid
8:27
Speaker 1: delayed eighteen hundreds when people started saying, hey, this is
8:31
Speaker 1: a problem, this is an issue. I think a lot
8:33
Speaker 1: of journalists did great work early on to expose a
8:36
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff, a lot of these dangers, and say,
8:40
Speaker 1: you know, some of these medicines can be really dangerous.
8:42
Speaker 1: Then a guy came along named Dr Harvey Wiley. He
8:46
Speaker 1: ran the Bureau of Chemistry, which proceeded the f d A,
8:49
Speaker 1: and he had a group called the Poison Squad, who
8:51
Speaker 1: were these healthy young men who would who would poison themselves.
8:54
Speaker 1: They would eat chemicals to see what happened. Because, as
8:57
Speaker 1: you'll see kind of throughout this whole epiodisode, much of
9:02
Speaker 1: the work of poison control, from the very beginning all
9:05
Speaker 1: the way up through today is just simply categorizing and
9:10
Speaker 1: listing out things that make people sick and exactly how
9:13
Speaker 1: they make them sick. It's like it's like a big database, right,
9:16
Speaker 1: and then in the best case scenario, how to treat
9:18
Speaker 1: with somebody who accidentally ingest that thing too. You know.
9:23
Speaker 1: But we talked about Wiley and the Poison Squad. We
9:25
Speaker 1: did an episode years ago UM called Does the FDA
9:28
Speaker 1: Protect Americans? And we talked about them and like, hats
9:31
Speaker 1: off to them. But between the muckrakers and Dr Wiley, um,
9:38
Speaker 1: not just government was kind of forced into action, but
9:41
Speaker 1: the public started to become educated about, you know, just
9:44
Speaker 1: how dangerous their everyday life was, where before they hadn't
9:48
Speaker 1: really realized it on any kind of collective level, you know. Yeah,
9:52
Speaker 1: I think it was the UM and I then we
9:54
Speaker 1: talked about the Pure Food and Drug Act, Right, didn't
9:56
Speaker 1: you just say that? Not yet? Okay? That was nineteen
9:59
Speaker 1: o six, also called it the Wiley Act after Harvey Wiley,
10:03
Speaker 1: and it basically said, hey, you gotta start labeling stuff.
10:07
Speaker 1: You gotta be really clear about what's in certain products,
10:11
Speaker 1: especially if it contains alcohol, heroin, caffeine, cannabis. You gotta
10:16
Speaker 1: let people know what's in these products. And again with
10:20
Speaker 1: the media, they were bringing it to light, and if
10:22
Speaker 1: you were a company at the time, it became a
10:25
Speaker 1: thing where like just from a pr standpoint, you needed
10:28
Speaker 1: to start doing this and be a little more transparent.
10:30
Speaker 1: Otherwise you would get a bad name if poisoning was
10:34
Speaker 1: in the newspaper and your product was you know, kind
10:36
Speaker 1: of to blame. Yeah, yeah, which I mean that's kind
10:39
Speaker 1: of what the um. The Pure Food and Drug Act
10:42
Speaker 1: of nineteen o six was predicated on the idea that
10:45
Speaker 1: a company would want to protect its image or business
10:48
Speaker 1: and not suffer ruination from bad PR. But they found
10:52
Speaker 1: out um in oh, I guess the mid nineteen thirties
10:57
Speaker 1: that that just wasn't the case. Um, well, I think
11:00
Speaker 1: we should do a short stuff on this this episode.
11:02
Speaker 1: It's just nuts what happened. But the upshot is that
11:06
Speaker 1: a preparation of sulfonillamide, an antibiotic, was prepared using anti freeze.
11:14
Speaker 1: Um and there was yeah and there and to give
11:17
Speaker 1: it like a sweet flavor, raspberry flavor. That's sweet, sweet
11:20
Speaker 1: and free. That's right. But the upshot of the whole
11:24
Speaker 1: thing was that there was no regulation that said, you
11:27
Speaker 1: guys need to test this first. They can just market it.
11:30
Speaker 1: And they actually got him on a technicality, but a
11:32
Speaker 1: hundred people died from this, and that really hastened the
11:38
Speaker 1: UM the law. I think it was an amendment to
11:41
Speaker 1: the Pure Food and Drug Act that basically said, Okay,
11:44
Speaker 1: not only do you have to label stuff now when
11:46
Speaker 1: it has any kind of chemicals or weird ingredients, you
11:49
Speaker 1: also need to test these things first before you release
11:51
Speaker 1: them to the public. That was a huge, huge um
11:56
Speaker 1: foundation that was laid to protect just people like you
12:00
Speaker 1: and me from the stuff that's in our kitchen or
12:03
Speaker 1: our bathroom, you know. And it's not like somebody said, Okay,
12:07
Speaker 1: next up poison control centers. But that was kind of
12:10
Speaker 1: like the the zeitgeist that was churning as poison control
12:14
Speaker 1: centers started to come along, you know, tangentially to that.
12:17
Speaker 1: All Right, so the groundwork is laid, Let's take a
12:20
Speaker 1: break and we'll come back and get going with in
12:24
Speaker 1: earnest poison control centers. I love these episodes, Chuck, where
12:48
Speaker 1: we spend a full third talking about not the thing. No,
12:52
Speaker 1: but this is all important. I know. Take it easy
12:56
Speaker 1: on yourself. I'm trying. I'm still recover ring from that
13:00
Speaker 1: that haymaker you threw earlier movie crush. Yeah. Oh, by
13:06
Speaker 1: the way, since uh, we don't do any kind of
13:08
Speaker 1: podcast promotion for our shows at our network, I would
13:12
Speaker 1: like to promote the Alan Ball six ft Under anniversary episode.
13:16
Speaker 1: If you were a fan of six ft Under, I'm
13:18
Speaker 1: really really proud of this episode and go check it out.
13:22
Speaker 1: It's it's out now. So you interviewed the Alan Ball
13:25
Speaker 1: creators feed under my basement on my zoom. That's so awesome.
13:30
Speaker 1: Did you say sixth anniversary? Couldn't be six? Okay, I
13:35
Speaker 1: thought you said sixth for some reason. Yeah, that's really
13:37
Speaker 1: and plus I guess that'd be kind of a bizarre
13:39
Speaker 1: anniversary to celebrate now that they think about it, the
13:41
Speaker 1: sixth anniversary. When does that come out? It's out, it's live.
13:45
Speaker 1: That's great. Congratulations, thanks man, it's a good one. So um,
13:49
Speaker 1: all right, you were being unkind to my friend when
13:53
Speaker 1: I had to plug make that plug? Who Dr Chevalier Jackson? No, you, oh, Emily,
13:59
Speaker 1: and always say that when we're beating ourselves up, say
14:03
Speaker 1: that be nicer, to be nicer to my friend. Alright,
14:08
Speaker 1: So twentieth century is is going strong. People are starting
14:13
Speaker 1: to understand, uh and you know, they were making efforts
14:16
Speaker 1: to try and catalog some stuff, but it was really
14:19
Speaker 1: sort of all over the place in the early few decades.
14:22
Speaker 1: I think in the in the twenties. Uh, lie that
14:26
Speaker 1: you made soup with and some people still mix up
14:28
Speaker 1: with was kind of one of the big poisoners of
14:31
Speaker 1: children because depending on what form you had it, and
14:33
Speaker 1: it could look like milk or sugar, and there was
14:36
Speaker 1: a doctor named Dr Chevalier Keihode Jackson who was a laryngologist.
14:43
Speaker 1: That's gotta be how you say it right, not a laryngologist,
14:47
Speaker 1: I guess so. I'd never said it out loud. I've
14:49
Speaker 1: always said it in my head, but I've never noticed
14:51
Speaker 1: how I say it. Well, I think you think you
14:53
Speaker 1: said it. I mean laryngologists would be what you think,
14:56
Speaker 1: but laryn geologists sounds more correct, even though it sounds funny. Aaryngeologist, Yeah,
15:01
Speaker 1: it's got to be that. How maybe it's just called
15:03
Speaker 1: him an E and T. Maybe it's laryngeologist or a
15:07
Speaker 1: larynge al list. Lauren, No, you're missing a couple of
15:12
Speaker 1: letters there, lurngel lists, the laryngelo list. There you go.
15:18
Speaker 1: Oh goodness, it still cracks me that word for the
15:20
Speaker 1: rest of the episode. It still cracks me up after
15:22
Speaker 1: fourteen years when people sweethearts right in and say, hey,
15:26
Speaker 1: you know, I'm an expert. If you want to help
15:28
Speaker 1: pronounce me pronounce pronunciating something right exactly, give me up.
15:33
Speaker 1: I'll help you pronunciate all all day long. Goodness, alright.
15:37
Speaker 1: What's funny is it'll be like from a laryngelologist, and
15:41
Speaker 1: we'll just never mentioned larynge al alogists again, so hopefully
15:46
Speaker 1: unless it comes up a lot like our new friend
15:50
Speaker 1: molly Bidnium, molly B, molly B is all over alright.
15:55
Speaker 1: So this laryngologist was having a lot of cases of
15:58
Speaker 1: kids coming in and swallowing LIE. Wouldn't kill you, but
16:01
Speaker 1: it would tear up your esophagus so bad that you
16:04
Speaker 1: might die because you can't eat, which is just awful.
16:08
Speaker 1: So Dr Jackson said, we gotta really do something about
16:12
Speaker 1: this LIE problem, and uh really championed the Federal Caustic
16:16
Speaker 1: Poison Act of ninety seven, which basically kind of only
16:21
Speaker 1: covered I don't know if it only covered LIE, but
16:23
Speaker 1: it only covered caustic poisons. Yeah, it was pretty narrow
16:29
Speaker 1: and pretty specific, and it basically just said you have
16:32
Speaker 1: to put a warning symbol on right now on those
16:34
Speaker 1: specific things. But it was a it was an early
16:38
Speaker 1: um law related to the idea of household chemicals being
16:41
Speaker 1: dangerous to people and letting people now, because up to
16:44
Speaker 1: that point, the producers of LIE were like, uh, no,
16:47
Speaker 1: we have no interest in labeling our product is dangerous.
16:51
Speaker 1: Why would we tell people that. In fact, a lot
16:54
Speaker 1: of them marketed the exact opposite were like safe on
16:56
Speaker 1: skin gentle, you know, like a mountain rain to that
17:00
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And it's like, no, it's it's lie.
17:02
Speaker 1: This is like drain cleaner, you know, or oven cleaner.
17:06
Speaker 1: It's like the worst of the worst. But that that
17:08
Speaker 1: law got it past. So that helped laid the groundwork
17:11
Speaker 1: as well. Um. And then in the thirties there was
17:14
Speaker 1: a guy who came along named Dr J. I mean,
17:19
Speaker 1: it's spelled arena, so maybe it's arena or arena, one
17:23
Speaker 1: of the two. And he was a pediatrician at Duke,
17:27
Speaker 1: and he basically said, look, this problem extends a lot
17:30
Speaker 1: more to beyond lie, Like there's a lot of chemicals
17:34
Speaker 1: that are poisoning kids. I think he actually did write
17:36
Speaker 1: a thing about lie in particular. Um, but he was
17:40
Speaker 1: he was saying like, no, this is this is worth cataloging.
17:44
Speaker 1: And I think he started the process. He started the
17:47
Speaker 1: whole cataloging poisons trend that became so huge in the thirties. Yeah,
17:51
Speaker 1: he wrote a book called Beyond the Lie Colon just
17:56
Speaker 1: kidding that that subtitle is terrible. Uh So, if you
18:01
Speaker 1: want to look at the might be the father of
18:05
Speaker 1: the Poison Control Center. Yeah, this is the guy. Not
18:09
Speaker 1: not quite as awesome as being like the Godfather of
18:12
Speaker 1: Soul or the Queen of Soul, or the father of
18:16
Speaker 1: hip hop or Father Time. But if you're the father
18:20
Speaker 1: of the Poison Control Center, you've done a lot of good.
18:22
Speaker 1: And it was a pharmacist in Chicago name. Uh, I'm
18:26
Speaker 1: gonna say Dolomon, Louis Dolman with a silent G on
18:30
Speaker 1: the front. Does that make sense. I was gonna do
18:32
Speaker 1: a shout out to our Australian listeners and say his
18:35
Speaker 1: name is Louis Goodman. For all I know it is
18:40
Speaker 1: Louie good Almond, but I'm gonna say Louis Dolman. And
18:42
Speaker 1: he was the first person to really start collecting this data. Uh.
18:47
Speaker 1: And he did it on index cards. Like I said,
18:49
Speaker 1: much of the early work and still a lot of
18:51
Speaker 1: the work they do, is categorizing and cataloging this stuff,
18:54
Speaker 1: just because you gotta know what card to look up
18:58
Speaker 1: if someone calls in to say they've been poisoned. And
19:01
Speaker 1: this was through the forties, and he established a hotline.
19:04
Speaker 1: Again this was only in the Chicago area, but you
19:08
Speaker 1: could for um, I mean seven basically call and get
19:13
Speaker 1: information as yeah, oh no. He would answer the phone
19:17
Speaker 1: day or night. Yep. He basically said, I'm starting this.
19:20
Speaker 1: I'm going to be by God, I'm gonna be known
19:23
Speaker 1: as the father is something, and if it's poison control centers,
19:26
Speaker 1: so be it. He had his little recipe book cards
19:29
Speaker 1: literally and would just sit there and thumb through him
19:32
Speaker 1: and read what he thought was going on. It's amazing.
19:34
Speaker 1: He was very famous. His catchphrase was hold please, and
19:39
Speaker 1: then you could hear him sorting through and be like, no,
19:41
Speaker 1: that's nothing. Eventually those made it to microfiche, right. So um,
19:48
Speaker 1: he was not just because he created these um index
19:51
Speaker 1: cards and started taking calls twenty four hours a day.
19:54
Speaker 1: That's not the only reason he was the father of
19:56
Speaker 1: the poison control center. He actually started founding with another guy, Ducker,
20:00
Speaker 1: Edward Press, the first poison control centers that were beyond like,
20:04
Speaker 1: you know, his bedroom at three in the morning. He
20:08
Speaker 1: founded I think eleven of them to start, and then
20:11
Speaker 1: eventually they created a trend that would be followed later
20:14
Speaker 1: where they were consolidated into a single one, which it
20:17
Speaker 1: turns out, as far as poison control centers is definitely
20:20
Speaker 1: way more efficient than having a bunch of different poison
20:23
Speaker 1: control centers, and they they had like nurses, they had
20:28
Speaker 1: doctors working there, they had people who knew what they
20:30
Speaker 1: were talking about, and they were creating like the first database,
20:36
Speaker 1: the first generalized information about poisonings, about toxicology, like really
20:41
Speaker 1: helping establish this field from taking data from real world
20:47
Speaker 1: examples that were the people who were calling in for help.
20:50
Speaker 1: So it was like a twofold thing. They were helping
20:52
Speaker 1: the people there, they were helping the doctors who were
20:55
Speaker 1: helping their patients UM, and they were also gathering data
20:59
Speaker 1: to create kind of this this foundation for understanding the
21:02
Speaker 1: effects of toxic chemicals on the human body. Yeah, and
21:07
Speaker 1: this was I think within five years of that Chicago
21:11
Speaker 1: system there were two d and sixty five centers opened
21:15
Speaker 1: in the US, but again still no sort of central
21:19
Speaker 1: database or national framework or even certification process. Uh. They
21:24
Speaker 1: were doing a lot of good work, but these first
21:26
Speaker 1: UM efforts were really different than today's in a couple
21:29
Speaker 1: of big ways. Uh. One, I mean the biggest one
21:33
Speaker 1: is that when you call now, you are the human
21:36
Speaker 1: that has just swallowed something. Calling Back in the day,
21:39
Speaker 1: if you're poison you called your doctor, then the doctor
21:41
Speaker 1: would call the poison control center and get their advice
21:44
Speaker 1: from there. And I think nineteen sixty one is when
21:48
Speaker 1: these direct calls from the public started to be introduced,
21:51
Speaker 1: which was a big, big, super necessary change, so that
21:55
Speaker 1: I mean, that is a huge deal to to to
21:59
Speaker 1: just go straight to poison control center because before you
22:01
Speaker 1: had to go to your doctor and then they went
22:03
Speaker 1: to the poison control center. And apparently that's still the
22:06
Speaker 1: case in a lot of European countries, but in the
22:09
Speaker 1: United States you can just call somebody who knows that
22:12
Speaker 1: they're talking about with poisons. And that is a really
22:15
Speaker 1: big um effect that poison control centers have is they
22:21
Speaker 1: prevent unnecessary healthcare spending because, as we'll see, the vast
22:26
Speaker 1: majority of UM calls to poison control centers can be
22:30
Speaker 1: resolved like at the place it's happening, whether it's work
22:33
Speaker 1: or whether it's at your house or something like that.
22:34
Speaker 1: You don't actually have to go to the hospital. So
22:37
Speaker 1: if you're not showing up to an emergency room or
22:39
Speaker 1: a doctor's office or something, that means that's time that
22:42
Speaker 1: somebody else who does need to be there can be
22:45
Speaker 1: be having attention paid to them, and it's just less
22:48
Speaker 1: money spent on healthcare for you showing up. And I
22:51
Speaker 1: saw in some Massachusetts Rhode Island poison control center website
22:56
Speaker 1: they estimated that for every dollar invested into a poison
23:00
Speaker 1: troll center, it saves thirteen dollars in healthcare spending and
23:04
Speaker 1: lost productivity. It's amazing, it really is. And that's a
23:07
Speaker 1: huge function that they play. You know, you think of
23:09
Speaker 1: like poison control centers is basically being like, oh, I
23:12
Speaker 1: just accidentally drank some anti freeze or something, uh, and
23:18
Speaker 1: you know, I need to call and get some help.
23:20
Speaker 1: But there's you know, these other roles that are easily
23:22
Speaker 1: overlooked that are really important as well that they that
23:25
Speaker 1: they play. That's kind of evolved over time totally. Um.
23:28
Speaker 1: So I mentioned the two big changes over the years, uh,
23:33
Speaker 1: and one was that you call in instead of your doctor.
23:35
Speaker 1: The other big one was back then, in the early days,
23:38
Speaker 1: it was almost entirely centered around pediatric poisoning. Uh. And
23:43
Speaker 1: you know, we have some stats will get too later
23:44
Speaker 1: you can see why children are still the most poisoned
23:48
Speaker 1: UM in the population, just you know, from accidents. But
23:53
Speaker 1: it's uh, they just didn't have a lot of um
23:56
Speaker 1: data on adult poisoning back then, so it was really
23:58
Speaker 1: folk child focus and they could help with adult poisonings.
24:02
Speaker 1: It's not like they would hang up or anything like that,
24:05
Speaker 1: but it was kids getting their hands on poison as
24:07
Speaker 1: kind of the big concern. Yeah, so they're starting to
24:11
Speaker 1: develop in the thirties, forties, fifties, and then UM an
24:14
Speaker 1: important person named Leroy edgar Berney who was a Surgeon
24:18
Speaker 1: General of the United States in the late fifties. UM
24:22
Speaker 1: he got involved. He took an interest in the idea
24:25
Speaker 1: of poison control centers, started National Poison Awareness Week, I believe,
24:30
Speaker 1: and UM founded the National Clearinghouse for Poison Control Centers,
24:35
Speaker 1: which is it took that database idea that started out
24:38
Speaker 1: as index cards that Lewis Dolman created in his kitchen
24:43
Speaker 1: and and really kind of professionalized it and made it
24:47
Speaker 1: like this this big thing that everybody at all the
24:50
Speaker 1: poison control centers around the country could contribute to UM
24:53
Speaker 1: and making it this growing body of knowledge. And it
24:56
Speaker 1: also became something of a magnet for grant and funding
25:00
Speaker 1: and all that because everyone recognizes, you know this this
25:04
Speaker 1: role of collecting data for toxicology is really important, and
25:08
Speaker 1: that's where a lot of the funding, especially any federal
25:11
Speaker 1: funding that UM poison Control center might get is kind
25:15
Speaker 1: of aim toward. Yeah, and they were still at the
25:17
Speaker 1: time using literal carbon paper to create multiple copies of
25:22
Speaker 1: these things. I think in seventy four there was a
25:26
Speaker 1: commercial toxicology data set put together finally kind of internets
25:30
Speaker 1: called Poisondex. I love it. It's pretty good. UM still
25:34
Speaker 1: in use today. But it's it was funny reading all
25:37
Speaker 1: this stuff. It's like, I don't know if there's ever
25:39
Speaker 1: been an institution that was more crying out for the
25:44
Speaker 1: Internet to be born. Yeah, as far as just as
25:48
Speaker 1: we'll see with consolidation and efficiencies and sharing of information.
25:52
Speaker 1: I mean, the Internet changed every everything, uh, you know,
25:56
Speaker 1: as far as this stuff goes for the better. But
25:58
Speaker 1: UM poison Control role centers really like when you're mailing
26:03
Speaker 1: uh pamphlets around the country and you're putting things together
26:07
Speaker 1: with carbon paper and index cards and even microfiche, it's
26:11
Speaker 1: like all they needed was the Internet to really make
26:14
Speaker 1: it a robust system. Yeah, and they they did. I
26:17
Speaker 1: think they added by hand the Internet, right, Like fifty
26:22
Speaker 1: million incidents were eventually added a little by little. It's
26:27
Speaker 1: a lot of hard work to what became known as
26:29
Speaker 1: the National Poison Data System the MPDS, and that's still
26:33
Speaker 1: in in uh in use today. So there's a ton
26:37
Speaker 1: of information. Like every time you call poison control and
26:40
Speaker 1: they start a case that the details of that case
26:43
Speaker 1: end up being added to the poison data system. Um,
26:47
Speaker 1: and so that database is growing, you know, every day.
26:50
Speaker 1: Should we take that second break? I think? So, all right,
26:54
Speaker 1: let's take another break, and we'll flash forward to the
26:57
Speaker 1: wild seventies and eighties and see what was going on
26:59
Speaker 1: in the poison control centers. Okay, chuck, it's the seventies
27:23
Speaker 1: and anybody at the poison control centers are taking pills
27:27
Speaker 1: themselves sometimes have to call in for help. Um. The
27:32
Speaker 1: eighties weren't much better, and there's some other stuff going on. Yeah,
27:37
Speaker 1: So in the seventies are um with the advent of
27:40
Speaker 1: more people abusing pills, that became a larger focus of
27:45
Speaker 1: poison control centers and the toxicology. I think in seventy
27:49
Speaker 1: four was when the prescription pill bottles, and I think
27:52
Speaker 1: we talked about this in the wasn't the title at all? No,
27:56
Speaker 1: because that was over the counter prescription pills were in
27:59
Speaker 1: nine and seventy four. As far as child proofing, and
28:03
Speaker 1: that really made a marked difference over the next couple
28:06
Speaker 1: of decades and kids being poisoned by by drugs. Yeah,
28:11
Speaker 1: between seventy four and ninety six, the incidents of kids
28:15
Speaker 1: dying from prescription pill poisonings decreased by So that was
28:22
Speaker 1: a really good federal law. And what's interesting is because
28:26
Speaker 1: of that law, and because of these information campaigns that
28:29
Speaker 1: were drummed up to kind of like not just let
28:31
Speaker 1: parents know about, you know, the hazards of of dangerous chemicals,
28:35
Speaker 1: but also let kids know too, poisonings of children actually
28:38
Speaker 1: declined so dramatically that there was a vacuum left open,
28:42
Speaker 1: basically free time that toxicologists and poison centers had to
28:47
Speaker 1: start investigating and better understanding adult poisoning incidents as well.
28:52
Speaker 1: So there's kind of a shift in the seventies and
28:54
Speaker 1: eighties in that sense. Yeah, and then in the sixties,
28:56
Speaker 1: another one of my favorite things in pop culture history
29:00
Speaker 1: happened is when they decided that, you know, we're using
29:04
Speaker 1: the skull and crossbones to indicate something as poisonous, and
29:08
Speaker 1: it turns out children love pirates, so that's probably sending
29:12
Speaker 1: a mixed message. So we need to we need to
29:15
Speaker 1: do something about this. So they mounted in Pittsburgh what's
29:18
Speaker 1: called the Mr. Yuck y Uk campaign, and it was
29:22
Speaker 1: to get a new logo basically that kids would not
29:25
Speaker 1: want to go drink the product like because they thought
29:28
Speaker 1: it was Pirates juice or whatever Pirates room. And uh
29:32
Speaker 1: they did a little thing where they got all these
29:34
Speaker 1: different logos and designs created, showed them to a bunch
29:38
Speaker 1: of kids and said which ones do you least like?
29:42
Speaker 1: Which one of these designs is yuck to you? And
29:46
Speaker 1: they chose a picture of Martin Screwley's face. It's amazing. Wow,
29:52
Speaker 1: that was quite a build up. I wish I could
29:55
Speaker 1: read out all the different faces I have on this
29:57
Speaker 1: page before I settled on Martin Screlly. Who else you
30:00
Speaker 1: gotta give us? I don't really think I can, because
30:02
Speaker 1: I took them off for reasons, because you can't go
30:06
Speaker 1: after someone hard unless it's a guy like that, you know. Yeah,
30:10
Speaker 1: I got to sure, sure, well, because I gotta know,
30:16
Speaker 1: I forget about everybody else. I just need to know.
30:19
Speaker 1: Uh No, it was actually what they called it was
30:21
Speaker 1: Mr Yuck and it was the what you see now
30:23
Speaker 1: a lot of times, is that sort of sick green um,
30:27
Speaker 1: emoji face that's really upset. It looks like it's kind
30:30
Speaker 1: of puky, and kids are like, I don't like that face.
30:33
Speaker 1: So they said, well, I guess that's what we'll start using.
30:35
Speaker 1: Then they said perfect, yeah, yeah that when that was
30:38
Speaker 1: pretty successful too. Um. And then one of the other
30:41
Speaker 1: things that really kind of happened during this time because
30:44
Speaker 1: I guess poison control centers were a bit of a
30:46
Speaker 1: victim of their own success. Um, there was this push
30:50
Speaker 1: for consolidation. Um. There was just so many poison control
30:55
Speaker 1: centers and now they were working thanks to the National
30:58
Speaker 1: Poison Data System. They were like working in tandem with
31:02
Speaker 1: one another, like they were sharing information and knowledge and
31:06
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But there were just too many
31:07
Speaker 1: of them. There's an unnecessary need or an unnecessary number.
31:11
Speaker 1: And then even more inefficiently, despite the fact that there
31:14
Speaker 1: were six hundred and fifty almost poison control centers in
31:18
Speaker 1: the United States, only about half of the American population
31:22
Speaker 1: was covered by a poison control center. Like, if you
31:26
Speaker 1: were poisoned in Topeka, say you had to drive to
31:30
Speaker 1: Kansas City and use the phone to call a poison
31:33
Speaker 1: control center. I made that up, but I bet it's
31:36
Speaker 1: pretty close. To accurate, and if those cities aren't correct,
31:39
Speaker 1: the general sentiment is okay, everybody, so just layoff. Uh.
31:44
Speaker 1: And even the most robust poison control centers were getting
31:47
Speaker 1: like maybe ten calls a day, So that's just really
31:51
Speaker 1: inefficient that. Like you said, they were sharing information. That
31:54
Speaker 1: was good, but it was ironically sort of the lack
31:57
Speaker 1: of budgeting that led them to start. It wasn't like
32:00
Speaker 1: they said, hey, let's just start shrinking are the number
32:03
Speaker 1: of these centers? They were kind of forced to and
32:06
Speaker 1: then the writing was on the wall, like there's a
32:08
Speaker 1: much more efficient way to do this, because we're talking
32:11
Speaker 1: about call centers, you know. Yeah, is there anything that
32:16
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan couldn't do? Chuck? He never won an Academy Award,
32:22
Speaker 1: I believe it. Have you seen any of his movies?
32:24
Speaker 1: I haven't actually oh that he was not a great actor. No,
32:29
Speaker 1: they weren't good particularly so yeah, I haven't seen in
32:32
Speaker 1: those old westerns. So but the upshot of it, um, Well,
32:36
Speaker 1: he was also in like hell Cats of the Navy,
32:38
Speaker 1: that's where he met Nancy. And that was a World
32:40
Speaker 1: War two picture. Okay, I didn't see that one either.
32:43
Speaker 1: I didn't either. I've seen bits of it. How about that,
32:46
Speaker 1: you know, I have to he wasn't a great actor.
32:51
Speaker 1: But the upshot of it was UM that uh, that
32:55
Speaker 1: there were fewer poison control centers, and that actually panned
32:57
Speaker 1: out to be a good thing. It was surprising to
33:00
Speaker 1: me was despite the fact that automated switching UM was
33:03
Speaker 1: introduced in the seventies or the eighties at a T
33:08
Speaker 1: and T invented in the seventies, introduced in the eighties,
33:11
Speaker 1: it wasn't until two thousand one or two thousand two
33:14
Speaker 1: that there is a single national eight hundred number for
33:18
Speaker 1: poison control centers in the US. We should say that number.
33:22
Speaker 1: I agree we should. If we that would be totally US.
33:27
Speaker 1: I actually wrote it down on the front. Make sure. Yeah,
33:31
Speaker 1: it's an eight hundred to two two one to two two.
33:37
Speaker 1: You had to do it like a TV commercial. Okay,
33:39
Speaker 1: do it. That's one eight hundred two two two one
33:42
Speaker 1: to two two again one eight hundred to two two
33:46
Speaker 1: one to two two. That's we're making a joke, but
33:49
Speaker 1: that's what you're supposed to do. You know, three times
33:52
Speaker 1: you gotta do it. I think by two thousand two
33:55
Speaker 1: that number had shrunk to sixty four pccs in the US,
33:59
Speaker 1: and that's when that that toll free number was introduced.
34:02
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it was in two thousand one, I think
34:04
Speaker 1: that was introduced, and by that time it went from
34:09
Speaker 1: six and fifty servicing half the United States to sixty
34:12
Speaker 1: four servicing all of the United States. Yeah, I think
34:15
Speaker 1: it's down to fifty five now. It's a lean, mean
34:17
Speaker 1: efficiency machine, thank you all, thanks to that national number.
34:21
Speaker 1: And so there's fifty five. That doesn't mean there's one
34:24
Speaker 1: in every state, and five states have two. There's actually
34:27
Speaker 1: some states that don't have any. Like I was saying,
34:30
Speaker 1: there's a shared regional poison control center between Massachusetts and
34:34
Speaker 1: Rhode Island, UM, but they there. So there's some states
34:38
Speaker 1: that don't have their own. But everybody is served because
34:42
Speaker 1: they can call that number. It gets routed to either
34:44
Speaker 1: your closest poison control center or a poison control center
34:48
Speaker 1: whose line isn't busy. Right then, because you're you know,
34:52
Speaker 1: what you're ingesting in, um, you know, San Diego is
34:57
Speaker 1: probably the same product that you would be jesting in,
35:01
Speaker 1: you know, Burlington, Vermont. So it doesn't really matter who
35:04
Speaker 1: you talked to. They're going to also be working from
35:07
Speaker 1: the same data set, the National Poison Data System. So
35:10
Speaker 1: whoever can get to the phone, UM, you're gonna be
35:13
Speaker 1: talking to somebody who is either a doctor, UM, most
35:17
Speaker 1: likely a nurse, or there are specialists a poison control
35:20
Speaker 1: specialists UM, who's basically an information person. They're not a
35:25
Speaker 1: they're not a healthcare provider, but they work under the
35:28
Speaker 1: auspices of say like a nurse or a doctor at
35:30
Speaker 1: the poison control center. And they are UM certified and
35:34
Speaker 1: ongoing educated in toxicology, so they know what they're talking about. Yeah,
35:40
Speaker 1: so you you could go work for a poison control
35:42
Speaker 1: center if you wanted to and not go to medical
35:45
Speaker 1: school or get medical training. You just get on the
35:48
Speaker 1: job training. I think there's a lot of pharmacists too
35:51
Speaker 1: to take these calls UM, and as efficiently as they
35:54
Speaker 1: run it is maybe this is why, uh, they are
35:58
Speaker 1: not like the day to day ops are still not
36:00
Speaker 1: federally funded. UM. They do get some federal funding, like
36:05
Speaker 1: through the CDC for data collection, and but a lot
36:08
Speaker 1: of it comes through affiliated institutions, local health departments. UM.
36:13
Speaker 1: Like I said a little from the CDC, and I
36:17
Speaker 1: think the there was a there was another act. The
36:20
Speaker 1: Poison Control Center Enhancement an Awareness Act provided. I think
36:24
Speaker 1: they provided the funds for the number, but they're still like, hey,
36:28
Speaker 1: you want to keep the lights on and keep it staffed.
36:30
Speaker 1: You're not getting federally funded, which is interesting. I mean
36:34
Speaker 1: it's working though, so I guess maybe there's something to
36:37
Speaker 1: be said for getting the federal government out of this situation. Sure,
36:41
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it makes you wonder like
36:43
Speaker 1: what they could be doing if they weren't chronically underfunded,
36:46
Speaker 1: Like if they didn't have to have bake sales, do
36:48
Speaker 1: contract poisonings for local mobs or um asked for donations
36:53
Speaker 1: like that. That that stat I got about one dollar
36:56
Speaker 1: being invested in turning into thirteen dollars saved. That was
36:59
Speaker 1: from a nation page for a poison control center. I mean,
37:03
Speaker 1: come on, like those things should be you know, they
37:06
Speaker 1: don't have to be like bloated or anything like that,
37:08
Speaker 1: but they shouldn't be underfunded. That's just dumb. Yeah, And
37:12
Speaker 1: I think, just so people don't misunderstand, I wasn't saying, like, good,
37:16
Speaker 1: the federal government, you know, funds too many things, but
37:20
Speaker 1: the fact that they are a lean, mean poison control machine.
37:24
Speaker 1: It doesn't surprise me that the federal government is involved.
37:26
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Yeah, you're like, watch everyone
37:29
Speaker 1: as I turned into a fiscal conservative before your very eyes.
37:33
Speaker 1: Poof Um, alright, what what just happened? I don't know.
37:39
Speaker 1: Did you convert back? No? I'm good. That was close.
37:44
Speaker 1: So um, all right, what happened? You call a poison
37:47
Speaker 1: control center. You're gonna get that call answered, like you
37:50
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, not necessarily by the one in Atlanta. Um,
37:54
Speaker 1: if they're busy, they may broute you to just a
37:56
Speaker 1: different one. They'll be very friendly, they'll keep you calm. Yeah,
38:00
Speaker 1: that's the impression I have. I didn't actually call one
38:02
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to. I was scared too, But
38:05
Speaker 1: apparently you can just to get information if you want. Sure.
38:09
Speaker 1: The first thing they're gonna do, though, is is route
38:11
Speaker 1: your call, like if you're uh, if you just mistakenly
38:16
Speaker 1: called the number, because the first one you could think
38:17
Speaker 1: about after a car accident, they would say they would
38:20
Speaker 1: route you to nine one one and say maybe like, boy,
38:22
Speaker 1: you must have hit your head or something that way,
38:24
Speaker 1: dumb you remembered eight hundred two two two one to
38:28
Speaker 1: two two over nine one one? Are you kidding me?
38:31
Speaker 1: Crazy things have happened. And also that's another thing too.
38:34
Speaker 1: You can call nine one one and they can actually
38:36
Speaker 1: route you to poison control centers. What goes both ways.
38:39
Speaker 1: But I saw frequently they get calls from people who
38:42
Speaker 1: are suffering or think they're suffering, like food poisoning. They
38:45
Speaker 1: don't handle that kind of thing, but they will make
38:47
Speaker 1: sure that you get to somebody who does. Right. So
38:50
Speaker 1: they're gonna they're gonna talk you through that to begin
38:52
Speaker 1: with reroute you if they need to. They're gonna start
38:55
Speaker 1: immediately providing uh treatment advice, like if it's an a
39:00
Speaker 1: real emergency, they're gonna they're gonna, you know, kind of
39:03
Speaker 1: tell you what to do in the immediate like minutes
39:05
Speaker 1: that you're on the phone, uh, consult with anyone else
39:08
Speaker 1: they need to. And if you do need emergency care,
39:11
Speaker 1: and we'll go over the stats here in a second
39:13
Speaker 1: of how many actually do, which is not as many
39:15
Speaker 1: as you would think. They will call the paramedics, they
39:18
Speaker 1: will call ahead to the local e er. They're gonna say, hey,
39:21
Speaker 1: you've got someone coming in. His name is Josh Clark.
39:24
Speaker 1: He drank pine sall he thought it was apple juice.
39:26
Speaker 1: And they'll say Josh Clark the podcaster. He's pretty dumb, apparently,
39:31
Speaker 1: And they will arrange kind of for all that ahead
39:33
Speaker 1: of time. They might even order test in the hospital,
39:36
Speaker 1: maybe a pizza, maybe a pizza or some other treatment.
39:39
Speaker 1: And they will even monitor and follow up on cases.
39:42
Speaker 1: Yeah until a Yeah, they keep and even if you're
39:46
Speaker 1: you know, if you're going to the hospital, they might,
39:48
Speaker 1: um they might coordinate you being transferred to a specialized center. Um.
39:53
Speaker 1: Like they are really, like I was saying, hands on.
39:55
Speaker 1: And then even if you stay at home, if they're
39:58
Speaker 1: like okay, this is good, You're you're fine, and like, uh, okay,
40:01
Speaker 1: this is fine. You were overwhelmed by oven cleaner fumes
40:05
Speaker 1: or something like that. Just you know, open the windows,
40:07
Speaker 1: go outside. You're you know, take a few minutes, but
40:10
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be okay. I'm gonna stay on the
40:12
Speaker 1: phone with you whatever. After you get off the phone,
40:16
Speaker 1: they'll probably call you back in a half hour, an
40:18
Speaker 1: hour or something like that to check on you, to
40:20
Speaker 1: make sure you're still doing okay. Like I love poison
40:23
Speaker 1: control specialists. I think they're just the bomb. You know what,
40:27
Speaker 1: now I'm remembering we did call poison control one time
40:32
Speaker 1: when my daughter was a baby. Totally forgot about this.
40:36
Speaker 1: I don't even remember what it was. It turned out
40:38
Speaker 1: to be nothing, and it wasn't. I mean, she didn't
40:42
Speaker 1: drink anything or get poisoned, but we thought something might
40:45
Speaker 1: have happened. So you call and I remember now this
40:48
Speaker 1: triggered it because I remember them following up almost in
40:52
Speaker 1: a child welfare sort of capacity. It felt like, like, uh,
41:00
Speaker 1: did you do something. I remember getting grilled a little bit,
41:04
Speaker 1: or Emily getting grilled, and that's being like, man, poison
41:07
Speaker 1: control is no joke. Uh. I'll have to ask her
41:10
Speaker 1: tonight when she gets home. But I definitely remember now
41:14
Speaker 1: that that was just I remember the follow up part
41:16
Speaker 1: of it. Wow. And the fact that my daughter left.
41:18
Speaker 1: I remember that part. Yeah, that that part too. So um,
41:23
Speaker 1: if you do call and you you know, they walk
41:25
Speaker 1: you through the case and everything, like like we were saying,
41:27
Speaker 1: they'll they'll follow up, and all of that stuff gets
41:30
Speaker 1: logged into the National Poison Database and every eight minutes
41:35
Speaker 1: across all those fifty five poison control centers, all of
41:38
Speaker 1: their new information gets uploaded to the c d C,
41:41
Speaker 1: where there's a team of toxicologists who are engaged in
41:45
Speaker 1: toxo surveillance who scan all this stuff to look for
41:50
Speaker 1: signs of say, an outbreak of disease, and outbreak of
41:54
Speaker 1: poisoning is an outbreak of a new drug of abuse
41:58
Speaker 1: that people are suddenly, um you thing, and that is
42:01
Speaker 1: that is one of those big unsung functions of poison
42:05
Speaker 1: control centers is they can be the group who notices
42:09
Speaker 1: something that's happening all over the country to where you know,
42:12
Speaker 1: the individual e rs it's just one person coming in,
42:17
Speaker 1: but to these poison control centers, they are you know,
42:20
Speaker 1: there's fifty people suddenly around the country who are dropping
42:24
Speaker 1: dead from heroin. Well, that's not supposed to happen. What's
42:27
Speaker 1: going on with the heroin. There's actually a case in
42:30
Speaker 1: nineties six, I think, where poison control centers noticed that
42:34
Speaker 1: that people were showing up to e R s in
42:36
Speaker 1: the Northeast from heroin and they figured out that somebody
42:40
Speaker 1: had added scopel I mean to heroin and that people
42:42
Speaker 1: were having really bad reactions to it. And it was
42:45
Speaker 1: the poison control centers who noticed that those are what
42:48
Speaker 1: are called sentinel events, which is um a A there's
42:51
Speaker 1: a signal, there's a there's a basically exactly that something
42:56
Speaker 1: is afoot and um, they can help advise on how
43:00
Speaker 1: to treat it. They can contact the CDC. There's a
43:02
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff they can do. So they're like the
43:04
Speaker 1: first line of defense and monitoring that kind of stuff. Yeah,
43:08
Speaker 1: they've also in the last couple of decades been more
43:10
Speaker 1: involved with helping to tackle environmental toxic exposure. So like
43:15
Speaker 1: after the nine eleven attacks, obviously when there was you know,
43:19
Speaker 1: so much like bad stuff that first responders were breathing in, UM,
43:23
Speaker 1: the anthrax attacks that happened later on that year, UM,
43:27
Speaker 1: stuff like that, they're more and more involved in. So
43:30
Speaker 1: they're really more and more on the front lines of
43:33
Speaker 1: sort of tackling bigger things than my podcast host partner
43:38
Speaker 1: drank some pines all although that's up there. It tasted
43:42
Speaker 1: so bad too, but man, it looked like it was
43:44
Speaker 1: going to be some Apple two. Should we wind it
43:46
Speaker 1: out with some stats. Yeah, let's Although there's one other
43:50
Speaker 1: thing I want to say this. You know, we've been
43:51
Speaker 1: touting it's it's uh, it's virtues and for for good reason.
43:54
Speaker 1: But it's not a perfect system. Uh. And that was
43:57
Speaker 1: evidenced in I think two thousand twelve, two thousand and sixteen.
44:01
Speaker 1: I cannot remember, but there was, um they kind of
44:04
Speaker 1: famously poison centers missed the um the rash of tide
44:09
Speaker 1: pod poisonings that little kids were like, this thing looks delicious.
44:13
Speaker 1: Let me neat this UM and that that there were
44:17
Speaker 1: poisonings as a result, but there was no UH code
44:21
Speaker 1: that could be entered in the National Poison Data system.
44:25
Speaker 1: So the poison centers kind of knew what was going on,
44:28
Speaker 1: but they weren't really able to share this information and
44:31
Speaker 1: basically create this you know, Notice that this is a
44:34
Speaker 1: sentinel event because of basically a clerical problem, a clerical issue,
44:39
Speaker 1: and I think they've since solved it, but um, you know,
44:42
Speaker 1: it's still an evolving, ongoing process hammering out how to
44:45
Speaker 1: how to do this. But I think we were we
44:48
Speaker 1: were right in generally, you know, trumpeting how great this
44:53
Speaker 1: system is. Yeah, of course, UM, statistically a couple of
44:57
Speaker 1: years ago, in nineteen and of all the calls, and
45:01
Speaker 1: we're kids six and under, we're adults. Uh so I
45:06
Speaker 1: guess that leaves what between If you were under six,
45:14
Speaker 1: most of the poisonings were one in two year olds.
45:18
Speaker 1: More boys are poison than girls. Um, if you're thirteen
45:22
Speaker 1: and under, but more girls than boys if you're older
45:24
Speaker 1: than which is sad because it indicates the spike in
45:29
Speaker 1: self harm that poison control centers see as kids enter
45:32
Speaker 1: the teenage years, and it is largely girls. It's not
45:35
Speaker 1: exactly like girls just leaving boys in the dust, but
45:39
Speaker 1: they're definitely in the majority. UM or they're in the lead,
45:43
Speaker 1: I guess when it comes to self harm as far
45:45
Speaker 1: as poison control statistics go. But UM, that's also seen
45:50
Speaker 1: in the UH. The unintentional poisonings, like two percent of
45:56
Speaker 1: kids six and under, UM, they're poisonings are unintentional. Adult
46:01
Speaker 1: sixty are unintentional. With teenagers only thirty three percent of
46:06
Speaker 1: the poison calls that come in are unintentional. The rest
46:08
Speaker 1: are and are considered either self harm or it's like
46:12
Speaker 1: a drug overdose, which they're not setting out to overdose
46:16
Speaker 1: on drugs, but it's still considered intentional and the fact
46:19
Speaker 1: that they intentionally injected themselves or snort died that thing,
46:23
Speaker 1: or you know whatever else you do with drugs. Right. UH.
46:28
Speaker 1: In nineteen I think a little more than seventy six
46:32
Speaker 1: total were accidental UM eight percent total. We're almost nineteen
46:39
Speaker 1: percent total were intentional. And I think sixty eight thousand
46:42
Speaker 1: calls that your work for animals. We did mention that animals,
46:46
Speaker 1: you know, they you still want to call your vet,
46:49
Speaker 1: but if your animal ingested a toxic poison from your house,
46:52
Speaker 1: you can call a poison control center to get kind
46:55
Speaker 1: of quick information. And then I think I said earlier
46:58
Speaker 1: Chuck that like you can just call and ask them
47:02
Speaker 1: questions and they're totally cool with you. Like, there's a
47:05
Speaker 1: decent number of calls that come in every year from
47:07
Speaker 1: people saying like, hey, I want to take the St.
47:10
Speaker 1: John's warp, but my doctor prescribed me this um you
47:14
Speaker 1: know this heart medicine. Is that going to go okay
47:18
Speaker 1: with that party? Those would be right. Those would be
47:22
Speaker 1: the people that you would call and they will give
47:24
Speaker 1: you the info that you need and if you're looking
47:27
Speaker 1: around your house and wondering what's gonna do it. The
47:30
Speaker 1: top culprits for accidental poisoning at eleven p eleven and
47:34
Speaker 1: a half percent were cosmetics and personal care products. Imagine that, Well,
47:39
Speaker 1: they're so frequently left in, you know, easy to grasp places.
47:43
Speaker 1: They also smell good, they taste good one percent more
47:46
Speaker 1: than household cleaners. And I think at nine percent. You've
47:49
Speaker 1: got pain relief medications. Uh yeah, also algae blooms, toxic mushrooms,
47:57
Speaker 1: sharden batteries. Those are also problematic too. I think though
48:01
Speaker 1: sixty six of all cases are resolved at home, at
48:06
Speaker 1: least they were in nineteen, so that is, you know,
48:09
Speaker 1: it's a pretty decent majority. What's the number again, chuck
48:14
Speaker 1: two two two one to two two. Yeah. You can
48:17
Speaker 1: also go to poison help dot org. That's the Poison
48:21
Speaker 1: Control Center's website, and you can actually report online too,
48:25
Speaker 1: So there you go. Um, only if you have a
48:29
Speaker 1: poisoning or a good question. I guess too. Um. But
48:32
Speaker 1: since we said a good question, of course everybody, that
48:35
Speaker 1: means it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call
48:40
Speaker 1: this a couple of quick corrections. This is too for
48:46
Speaker 1: your money. Hey guys, Dr John Vera Hoven my physical
48:52
Speaker 1: metallurgy professor. Yeah, was from the Superior Iowa's eight not
49:00
Speaker 1: University of Iowa. I'm sorry, goose that one up. We
49:04
Speaker 1: have a proud metallurgy tradition, including the purest uranium used
49:07
Speaker 1: in the original Manhattan Project experiment produced by Dr harveyville
49:11
Speaker 1: Helm ghost cyclones, and that's from Bryan Sutton. Sorry about that, Brandon,
49:17
Speaker 1: all of these cyclones out there, I apologize. And then
49:21
Speaker 1: this is another one. This is from doctor Great Art,
49:25
Speaker 1: a k a. Doctor Mark staff Brandle, docent and associate
49:29
Speaker 1: Professor Emmett, emeritus in Switzerland, says there was much to
49:34
Speaker 1: compliment about the art mystry show, but I have one
49:37
Speaker 1: small complaint. Uh Caravaggio signature and the Malta aft altarpiece. Uh.
49:43
Speaker 1: The f is very well known and not a mystery.
49:46
Speaker 1: There are thousands of paintings by hundreds of artists with this.
49:49
Speaker 1: It is uh. Indeed, it is certainly an abbreviation for facet.
49:53
Speaker 1: The best translation would be was made by uh. This
49:56
Speaker 1: email message e g. Is f Mark staff brand Old
50:00
Speaker 1: wink wink. So he says that was really not a
50:03
Speaker 1: mystery and that was a common thing so we did
50:05
Speaker 1: not know that. Well, thank you Dr great Art, and
50:09
Speaker 1: also thank you Brin for that. And also I think
50:11
Speaker 1: I said that the KFC YUM Center was in Lexington
50:15
Speaker 1: when it's well, you don't confuse those two. That's it's
50:18
Speaker 1: very bad. No, I'm just gonna go ahead and say
50:21
Speaker 1: I've been secretly trolling everybody that I'm well aware of
50:25
Speaker 1: all of these very big there right. Yeah. Sorry everyone,
50:29
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I probably won't be back after this.
50:32
Speaker 1: Um so, I guess in the meantime, if you want
50:35
Speaker 1: to send us an email or send it off to
50:38
Speaker 1: stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you
50:46
Speaker 1: Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For
50:49
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
50:52
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.