Poison Control Calls

[FlamingoTutu]

A while back there was a big stink about how poison control calls about nic exposure had gone from “one per month in September 2010 to 215 per month in February 2014,” in the words of the CDC. “More than half (51.1 percent) of the calls to poison centers due to e-cigarettes involved young children under age 5, and about 42 percent of the poison calls involved people age 20 and older.“ New CDC study finds dramatic increase in e-cigarette-related calls to poison centers | CDC Online Newsroom | CDC

Now comes word that poison control centers are getting about one call an hour over kids that have swallowed or ingested in part those laundry “pods.” Over 700 of them were hospitalized and one child died, Not making light of this, no child and no animal deserves to be poisoned by any substance, but why all the publicity about ejuice and zip about pod poisonings? The question was rhetorical. Link to the soap poisoning stats is Laundry detergent pods pose serious risk to young kids | Reuters

 

[DrMA]

Interesting. Perhaps the CDC might take note of this "skyrocketing" of "poisonings" related to this novel product and call for it to be banned. No, wait. there's no money to be made from that and BP has little stake in the detergent game. Better just ignore it

 

[Norrin]

Well it's a much bigger story getting "poisoned" by something which is hardly a poison than something dangerous like soap. Remember what soap is made from though that might be another reason.

 

[skoony]

interestingly enough there was a news story on the radio this morning
concerning these pods. i wasn't really listening but.the gist was apparently
someonet is starting to get their undies in a bunch over it.
regards
mike
ah,ha:http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...lic-health-org-s-should-worry-more-about.html
and from y home town team.

 

[WhiteHighlights]

Since the other thread was closed, I figured I'd repost this here to keep comments together. No need to officially merge the threads.


I'd heard about the dangers of the pods to kids on the news a while ago. Interesting bit in the article, my emphasis..

Some manufacturers already have revised packaging and labels in efforts to make the detergent packets or "pods" safer for children. The study found calls dipped slightly after some of those changes were made.

Also look at the difference in time frame and total calls - again my emphasis:

The researchers examined 2012-13 data from the poison control centers group. Their study was published online Monday in Pediatrics.
Overall, there were 17,230 poison center calls about young kids getting into the packets, including 769 children who were hospitalized.

From the CDC release:

Poison centers reported 2,405 e-cigarette and 16,248 cigarette exposure calls from September 2010 to February 2014.

SAFTA also put out a press release about manufacturers putting child proof caps on ecig juice bottles to make them safer.

IIRC correctly when we discussed the initial CDC release on e-cigs, there was also pertinent info on the number of calls for toothpaste too. The ecig headline was sadly out of proportion to the risk and created fear when common sense (which we know isn't so common) should prevail. Keep chemicals away from kids...

 

[vaperature]

So that means 0.0000006% of Americans are getting poisoned by nicotine every month. Oh what a crisis. At least that's more than Americans who have contracted Ebola and look at what a panic they're having about that.

 

[Nate760]

So that means 0.0000006% of Americans are getting poisoned by nicotine every month.

No, it means 0.0000006% of Americans are the subject of a nicotine-related call to a poison control hotline. Over 90% of such calls are precautionary in nature and do not result in any medical intervention.

Meanwhile, 12,000 Americans are poisoned each year (that is, actually poisoned) by toothpaste.

 

[DrMA]

Yeah, but the real sore thumb that BP and their lackeys at CDC and FDA don't really want to talk about is raised by the 9000+ children who actually get hospitalized for overdosing on prescription medication. These aren't general information calls to poison control centers, but actual hospital visits! And, let's not forget that the vast majority of prescription pills already come in child-proof bottles.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/select-drugs-cause-most-childhood-poisonings/?_r=0

 

[Nate760]

Yeah, but the real sore thumb that BP and their lackeys at CDC and FDA don't really want to talk about is raised by the 9000+ children who actually get hospitalized for overdosing on prescription medication. These aren't general information calls to poison control centers, but actual hospital visits! And, let's not forget that the vast majority of prescription pills already come in child-proof bottles.

If they had to rely on numbers of actual hospitalizations, it would be perfectly self-evident to everyone that the "kids being poisoned by e-cigs" narrative has no basis in reality, and is about as much of a public health concern as people being struck by lightning who just won the lottery. They falsely conflate "poison control calls" with "poisonings" because that's the only way to lend their argument any (perceived) credibility.