Poison Control Centers: A vital, fragile resource

This week is National Poison Prevention Week, and we’d like to give thanks to the nation’s Poison Control Centers. 

Those of us who have called the 1-800-222-1222 hotline when our children (or even our pets) have swallowed something worrisome are already indebted to the medical professionals who staff these centers.   

If you’re lucky enough not to have needed to make that call, consider these numbers: 

1. In 2006, the 61 U.S. poison centers handled more than 2.5 million reports. 
2. Poisoning is the second most common form of unintentional death in the U.S. In any given year, there will be between 2 and 4 million poison exposures, 60 percent involving children under 6 in their own home. 
3. More than 70 percent of the cases handled by the poison centers were managed safely at home, resulting in dramatic cost savings — estimated at nearly a billion dollars in 2005 — over visits to the emergency room. 

But the willingness of the American public to keep funding the centers is uncertain. Richard Weisman, the American Association of Poison Control Centers' legislative affairs director and director of the Florida Poison Center in Miami, notes that the centers are funded by a patchwork of federal, state, local, and private sources. This network is particularly fragile in times of financial cutbacks. In 2003, Congress authorized an annual appropriation of $30.1 million for the centers. But in actuality they only received less than $24 million in funding for the 2007 fiscal year, and the Bush administration is proposing a further drop of 58 percent for the 2008 fiscal year. 

Such a cut, said Weisman, “would be catastrophic,” and could result in “almost complete elimination of education and prevention efforts. Many of centers would have to reduce their hours of operation and reduce the number of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists to answer the phone.” The result could be lots of busy signals and unanswered emergency calls. “The bottom line will be significant,” with an increase in deaths, predominantly children. 

And if it’s your call that goes unanswered?