The American Association of Poison Control Center (AAPCC) is a nonprofit organization that dedicates its time to caring for the health of the people through spreading information about poisons. The AAPCC works with 55 poison centers around America to tract and find the sources of different kinds of poisons. Their
mission statement is "The AAPCC is dedicated to actively advancing the health care role and public health mission of our members through information, advocacy, education and research."
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| http://www.rmpdc.org/emergency-page |
The AAPCC helps people in all 50 states including Puerto Rico and more. If anyone ever needed to reach the AAPCC, it can be reached at anytime of day and year, the number is 1-800-222-1222. During 2015, people around the country called the number every 11 seconds.
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| http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2009/05/20/california-poison-control-system-about-to-fold/ |
Alerts, or the latest poison control news can be found on the AAPCC website. The first of eight alerts found on the website is bath salts. Bath salts, commonly known as Cloud 9 or Bliss can cause hallucinations, panic attacks, and more. The number of exposures has decreased extensively from 2012 to 2016. The second alert on the website is e-cigarettes and liquid nitrogen. Sadly, most of the reports were about children under the age of 6 being poisoned by these products. The amount of reports has increased from 2011-2014, but decreased in 2016. The third latest news article on the AAPCC website talks about food and mushroom poisonings. The reports come from people who have ingested contaminated food. Thankfully, the number of reports has decreased since 2014, meaning people are eating cleaner foods or eating off of cleaner surfaces. The fourth alert states that hand sanitizer reports normally occur with children under the age of 12. The amount of reports has decreased, but not by much since hand sanitizer is still glittery, fun colored, and still smells like fruit or candy. The fifth latest poison control states that laundry detergent packets can be extremely harmful to young child, and they should be kept out of reach and sight from children. The amount of reports about laundry detergent packets to the AAPCC is increasing rapidly. The sixth alert is Opioid (Narcotic) pain medications. People are ingesting these medications to relieve pain, but become easily addicted to them. Over the years, the amount of reports has been decreasing. The seventh poison control news is about synthetic cannabinoids, also known as Spice, K2 and many other names. The website states that this drug is addictive and dangerous. The amount of alerts increased from 2013-2015, but decreased in 2016. The final alert on the website is about the current annual report highlights. It tells people about the 'who, what, where, when, and why' of different poisonings in the United States.
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Yuk |
The age and gender distributions for the current annual report include children under 6 (47%), older children 6-12 (6%), teens 13-19 (8%), adults 20-59 (26%), older adults 60+ (8%), and an unknown age (5%). The chronicity is every 11 seconds. The reasons for exposure range from unintentional to intentional to unknown reasons. Some scenarios could include calling the center because the person believes that they are being exposed to something that could harm them, including medications, animals, carbon monoxide or more. Pediatric exposures (<6 years) main reason for contacting the AAPCC is cosmetics/personal care product poisoning. Adult exposures (20+ years) main reason is analgesics poisoning. The greatest route of exposure is ingestion and aspiration (79%), followed by dermal, inhalation/nasal, ocular, bite/sting, unknown, and the smallest route is parenteral (1%). The top exposure among all ages is analgesics.
