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:
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1859–1924)
“Our intellect is not the most subtle, the most powerful, the most appropriate, instrument for revealing the truth. It is life that, little by little, example by example, permits us to see that what is most important to our heart, or to our mind, is learned not by reasoning but through other agencies. Then it is that the intellect, observing their superiority, abdicates its control to them upon reasoned grounds and agrees to become their collaborator and lackey.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“But look what we have built ... low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.... Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums.... Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)