This year, the Indiana Poison Center received over 81,000 calls for help. Information calls were boosted this year by the scares over potential asbestos contamination of Hostess snack products, which produced over 800 calls alone and many calls concerning the anthrax-letter terrorism incidents. Children remain our most commonly exposed age group, although usually with benign effects.
Intentional poisonings continue to contribute to a more severe case mix.
We are very pleased that our contacts in the health care community remain strong. Your input is always welcome to help develop our program to better serve the needs of health care providers throughout the state. Examples of this are continuation of the state's only inpatient medical toxicology treatment center at our host hospital to help manage the care of poisoned patients and of our Medical Toxicology Fellowship program to train physicians in medical toxicology. Response to these services remains brisk. The strength of our personnel continues to be the backbone of the Center, and we have been able to retain all our staff in the past year.