Every day in the United States, more than 80 people die from accidental poisoning. To be specific, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on this topic last year, the precise number is 87 poison deaths per day.
But even that underestimates the total poisonous picture of American life today. To quote further from the CDC analysis which was based on a detailed study from the year 2009:
- In 2009, 31,758 (76 percent) of the 41,592 poisoning deaths in the United States were unintentional, and 3,349 (8 percent) were of "undetermined intent". Unintentional poisoning death rates have been rising steadily since 1992.
- Unintentional poisoning was second only to motor vehicle crashes as a cause of unintentional injury death for all ages in 2009. Among people 25 to 64 years old, unintentional poisoning caused more deaths than motor vehicle crashes.
This was the first CDC report that ranked the risk of dying by poison higherthan the risk of dying in an automobile accident. The reality behind that shift is our increasing misuse of prescription drugs, especially opiate painkillers. The Los Angeles Times has documented this lethal trend in a terrific series during the last few months titled Dying for Relief.
I bring this up, in part, because this is National Poison Prevention Week and we are clearly not paying enough attention to prevention. If we were, we wouldn't be chemically-killing ourselves this way at an increasing rate.
So let's start by pointing out that there is a dedicated website for National Poison Prevention Week here.
There are a host of excellent stories published already offering advice, tips, and good common sense on ways to keep yourself, your family, and your pets safe. I want to highlight just three here for the different important points they make:
* A terrific piece in USA Today which points out that most children accidentally poisoned at home get in trouble not because they pry open a medicine chest but because they find pills and bottles left in sofas, on coffee tables, and even on floor.
* A story reminding us that this is not a problem only in this country but in any place with ready access to toxic substances; here's coverageof statement from the Canadian Minister of Health, citing the 1000s of children who end up in emergency rooms thanks to household poison exposure.
*A story about a cadre of directors of the country's poison control centers, visiting federal legislators to discuss the steady erosion of financial support for such programs, especially at a time when the risk is steadily rising.
I may be poison-obsessed here at this blog but my not so secret goal is to provide information that will keep you safer. Use it, okay?
Image: Poison Control Centers Logo/National Pesticide Information Center
