Poison Control Centers
A poison control center is a medical facility that is able to provide immediate, free, and expert treatment advice and assistance over the telephone in case of exposure to poisonous or hazardous substances. Poison control centers answer questions about potential poisons in addition to providing treatment management advice about household products, medicines, pesticides, plants, bites and stings, food poisoning, and fumes. More than 72% of poison exposure cases are managed simply by phone, greatly reducing the need for costly emergency room and doctor visits.
In the United States and many of its territories poison control centers can be reached by calling 1-800-222-1222. Free, private, expert help is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and in more than 150 languages.
In Canada consult the Canadian Association of Poison Control Centers
Many other countries also have a poison control center network. The WHO maintains a worldwide directory.
For those currently exposed to a poison in a country that does not have a poison control system, visit a local doctor or hospital.
Read more about Poison Control Centers: History
Famous quotes containing the words poison, control and/or centers:
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We as a nation need to be reeducated about the necessary and sufficient conditions for making human beings human. We need to be reeducated not as parents—but as workers, neighbors, and friends; and as members of the organizations, committees, boards—and, especially, the informal networks that control our social institutions and thereby determine the conditions of life for our families and their children.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“[Madness] is the jail we could all end up in. And we know it. And watch our step. For a lifetime. We behave. A fantastic and entire system of social control, by the threat of example as effective over the general population as detention centers in dictatorships, the image of the madhouse floats through every mind for the course of its lifetime.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)