National Poison Prevention Week: Child-Resistant Packaging and Poison Control Centers Save Lives
Press Release # 98-077
Transcript
(View of ringing phone, and someone picking up and saying: "Poison Center") Calls like these, sometimes frantic parents asking for help, (view of hand moving mouse) keep poison control centers across the country, busy 24 hours a day.
(close-up of woman saying:) "Basically John's going to be fine."
(View of the back of a person sitting at a computer) The centers receive about a million calls about child poisonings each year. (close-up of a person talking on the phone) Usually a child has swallowed something in the home that could be dangerous, even deadly.
(Representative from Poison Prevention Center speaking) "Most of the time it's a relatively minor incident that with appropriate instructions can be managed quickly, easily, and turns out perfectly fine."
(View of a woman walking with a little girl down a sidewalk) The Spangenberg family made one of those desperate calls in January. (close-up of feet walking down the sidewalk) 21 month old Amy had wandered into a neighbor's yard (view of woman and baby walking) and swallowed some moth balls put out to repel animals.
(Amy's mother speaking) "It was scary because you don't know if she has ingested them, you don't know how many, and being that I hadn't put them down, I didn't know exactly how harmful they were, or what was going to happen. So, that's when I called poison control and said "I need help."
(Close-up of Amy, then Amy sitting on her mother's lap and reading a book) Happy endings like Amy's are more common now. Across the country, deaths from accidental poisonings (close-up of Amy and her mother) are down significantly. (close-up view of all different kinds of medications and chemicals) There was an average of 450 deaths each year in the 1960's. (far view of medications and chemicals) Now that's dropped to about 50 each year. (close-up of a child resistant cap) Improvements in child-resistant packaging for medicines and chemicals continue to prevent many poisonings.
(CPSC's Chairman Ann Brown speaking) "We've made child-resistant packaging much more adult friendly. It was always effective, but now it's more effective because anybody who's an adult can use it more easily, but it still retains its child resistance."
(Representative from the Poison Prevention Week Counsel speaking at a press conference) "EPA found that almost half of the households surveyed, improperly store pesticides within the reach of small children."
(View of someone speaking and view of chemicals on a table) At a press conference, CPSC and the Poison Prevention Week Counsel, (view of poster) announced a new campaign to educate parents and caregivers. (adult putting bottles in bathroom cabinet) They recommend doing a safety check of your home, to make sure all medications (close-up of bottles being organized in a cabinet) and household chemicals (bottle being checked to make sure it has a child resistant cap) are in child-resistant packages (close-up of phone) and post the poison control center phone number next to your telephone. (close-up of a cabinet, close-up of syrup of ipecac bottle) They also suggest keeping "syrup of ipecac" on hand in case your child ingests something dangerous. (close-up of bottle) Don't use ipecac until the poison center recommends making the child vomit. (adult putting chemicals in cabinet above stove and closing it) These steps can help prevent more poisoning.
This is Meredith Resnick reporting.