National Poison Prevention Week encourages action to prevent childhood deaths resulting from drug poisoning. In the approximately 40 years of its existence, it has contributed to a reduction in childhood deaths from poisoning, whether from drugs or other products found in the home. William W. Bradley Chairman, Poison Prevention Week Council William W. Bradley, chairman of the Poison Prevention Week Council, is one person at the forefront of this initiative. He spoke to PMP News's senior editor Erik Swain about how to raise awareness of the role of packaging in drug poisoning prevention. From historical data, I noted that the downward trend in accidental childhood poisoning began about the time National Poison Prevention Week began, and has continued until the present.
Public education does indeed have a significant effect on preventing childhood poisoning.
Poison control centers have also saved lives by providing first-aid advice by phone. Some of the CR-protocol testing companies on D10.31 thought they might be able to help in the educational effort. The committee will not take an official role, but its testing-company members will try to incorporate poison prevention education in applying the CRP test protocol with both children and seniors. A flyer for seniors could encourage them to try the new senior-friendly packaging. The database does not routinely capture information about packaging, so we can only observe the trends and try to relate them to the packaging changes such as CRP and the change to unit-dose packaging for iron products.