WEBVTT - Ep 148 Poison Control Part 1: Who you gonna call? 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:03.440 So my name is Susanoyon and I'm the medical director 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:07.520 of the Connecticut Poison Control Center. We're going to start 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:14.040 the podcast today with little story, very common story that 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.159 every poison center really in the country encounters at some 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.040 point in time, you know, in the course of their work. 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.680 We're going to talk about the little laundry pods. You've 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.320 seen them in your grocy stores. The little laundry pods 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:30.400 are on the shelves right there with the other laundry detergents, 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.760 and they are used to clean your laundry. They hit 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:39.280 the market in the United States probably fifteen, maybe even 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.560 twenty years ago, and we moved at that point from 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.880 kind of powder based detergents to there were a lot 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:52.840 of liquid laundry detergents to these little pods. And these 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.040 little pods and I'm sure you've seen them, but they're 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.880 wrapped in plastic and they're usually very colorful. But there's 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.160 a component of laundry detergent. This is a component in 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:06.920 there of usually water softener, other components in there as well, 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.520 and again all wrapped up in a nice a little 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:14.039 plastic pouch. In their single use, we call them laundry pods, 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:18.160 but really the technical name is single use laundry detergent. 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.480 And even before they hit the market in the United States, 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:25.040 they had been quite popular in Europe and they had 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.720 adopted this quite quite quite avidly in Europe. So the 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.160 manufacturers of these detergents and these single use pods were 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.840 quite confident that this was going to take off in 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:36.759 the United States. 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:37.240 And it did. 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.760 And I want to take you back again fifteen twenty 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.319 years ago when they just hit the market, and we 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.680 had this interesting email from North Carolina going, what is 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.760 up with these laundry pods? I had a child or 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.400 a child in North Carolina bit into it and got 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.600 quite quite sick. And I don't call you know, the 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.280 medical director said, I don't quite understand what's going on. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.480 And then we had other people in upstate New York, 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:04.960 and then a few months later in Florida going, we 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.079 have had the same issues. We have little children who 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.160 bite into these laundry pods and they get quite quite ill. 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:13.360 And we looked at the illnesses and all that stuff. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.720 But let's just take a step back here. We are 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:19.639 in the United States used to liquid laundry deturches. We've 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.240 had that product on the market for decades. Children have 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:28.400 ingested that product for decades, and never did it result 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:33.880 in any really serious injury, certainly never resulted in ICU admissions, 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.600 never resulted in death. It was just not our expectation. 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.720 So here this new product enters the market, or at 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.560 least a new packaging of the product enters the market, 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.639 and we're starting to see a lot more ED visits. 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.000 Children are having problems with it, and we're seeing a 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.600 lot more admissions to the hospital. We're seeing admissions to 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.280 the intensive carrion things we had never ever seen before 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:57.480 with laundry dechurches. 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.520 So something's going on, basically. 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.200 And so we sit down, We sit down with each other, 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.639 We sit down with you know, kind of the pods themselves, 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.160 start looking at them, start looking at them differently. We 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.240 even sit down with the manufacturers of these laundry pods. 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:15.560 So we sit down with Pocter and Gamble, we'ing, what 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.440 did you put in those laundry pots? What are the ingredients? 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:20.440 What's going on? 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:22.359 And they came back they said, no, no, no, it's 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:26.440 laundry detergent. It is just plain laundry detergent. We're going, 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:28.800 what's the pH did you change the pH. Did you 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.880 do something? And they laughed a little bit when we 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.600 mentioned the pH, they go, yeah, the pH of that 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:38.320 product is lower, meaning it's closer to a pH of 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:43.000 seven than our typical laundry product. Because if we had 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.920 its pH at nine, which is what it usually is, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.720 it would destroy the plastic as it's sitting on the shelf, 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:51.960 so we had to lower the pH. Well, if the 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.000 pH is lower than nine and somewhere between nine and seven, 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:56.920 that should be perfectly fine for the child. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:58.800 So just hitting. 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.160 Against a lot of kind of like none of this 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.640 makes sense. And then I think, after thinking about this 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.760 and thinking about this and just realizing what it was 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:11.160 that we were seeing at the bedside, we came up 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.120 with likely what the answer was. 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:14.640 So what were we seeing at the bedside? 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:19.400 So these children would bite into these laundry pods sometimes, 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:20.840 you know, think about. 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:22.719 These laundry pods. They're under a little bit of pressure. 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.040 So when the children the child bites and bites again, 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:30.240 often the contents start to squirt out and they could 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:34.200 squirt out vertically up, they could squirt out horizontally out 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.520 of their mouth, or they could squirt out horizontally to 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:38.880 the back of their mouth if it squirted up and 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:40.840 ended up in their eyes, and we did have a 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:45.120 number of ocular exposures. We had a bit of corneal issues. 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.279 The cornea of the eye was looked, burned, was injured. 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:50.280 If it squirted out, you know, that would end up 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.440 on the floor, we don't worry about that. If it 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.200 squirts back, it would hit the back of the throat 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:59.800 the uvula. Children aren't very small children, not terribly coordinated 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.599 in terms of swallowing, and they would kind of choke, cough, 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:05.800 and swallow kind of all at the same time because 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.800 they're not very coordinated, and some of it would end 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.760 up in their lungs, and we had kind of an 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.520 aspiration type of issue. Some of them would kind of 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:17.919 go down into the stomach and kind of sort of 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.400 reside in the stomach as a result, and then we 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.480 were seeing a few, just a few injuries to the stomach, 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:26.960 burns to the stomach. 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:29.839 So studying this and looking at. 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.000 This a little bit, it's sort of behave like again, 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.320 something with a very high pH, something with a very 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.400 low pH. But this was not the issue here. It 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.400 behaved a lot like the very concentrated detergents that we 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.320 have out there. We ended up looking at. 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:46.240 The surf factants. 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:51.880 The surfact it is a component of detergents that stabilize bubbles. 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:53.880 We like things to bubble up, right if we if 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.200 we put a detergent, we wanted to bubble in our 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.200 you know, in our washing machine. And so because they're 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:03.279 packaging such small quantities of detergents, they had to increase 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.080 the amount of surfactants. And it turns out that the 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:10.719 surffactants were the issue. They are concentrated surfactants, and the 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.760 concentrated surfactants kind of destroy a little bit the inner 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.239 lining of the trachea, the lungs, the bronchi and the lungs, 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:20.880 and can to some degree wash away a lot of 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:25.000 that nice mucus that coats the stomach, causing a bit 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:29.479 of gestrointestinal kind of burns. Many many poison centers after 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.280 a few months were kind of declaring themselves, going, this 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:32.960 is an issue. 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:34.599 This is an issue. This is an issue. 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.240 So who do you sit with kind of regulate this 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:39.520 a little bit. And this is not a food, It 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:41.720 doesn't our drug, it doesn't fall under the Food and 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:46.000 Drug administration. This falls into the consumer product safety Commissions CPS, 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.240 and so you sit down with CPS, or at least 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:52.360 you alert this to CPS. They have discussions with the manufacturer. 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:55.440 They tried to negotiate and kind of arrive at some 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.520 kind of understanding about what's going on and now. 0:06:58.560 --> 0:06:59.760 And since you will. 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:04.520 See the products often often packaged child resistant, bigger packages, 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.760 it's the double zip pouch. It's a container with a 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.440 child resistant cap, so there was a child resistant component 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:13.320 to it. 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.560 So that was part of the regulation. The other part 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.040 is education needed to occur. 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.000 There needed to be a public health education campaign and 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.960 if you watch your TV you will occasionally see really 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.520 nicely they really nicely made commercials paid for by the manufacturer, 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.440 or alerting parents of young children to not let them 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.760 get a hold of these laundry pods, that they could 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.400 be dangerous, or them away from children, and so on 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.160 and so forth. This all took years, but it was 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.800 through the work of poison centers that well, first of all, 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.680 recognize it was a problem, dug in and kind of 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.840 found sort of what we think likely the problem is, 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:59.160 and sort of alerting the federal regulatory entities and having 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:00.760 them kind of way in on this. 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.360 So it was a terrific, terrific effort. Right there. 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.480 We were a little bit puzzled since these products had 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:11.120 been in use in Europe for years before they were 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:12.400 introduced in the United States. 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.320 Don't you have children in Europe? Isn't this occurring? You're like, 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:18.480 don't you have this problem in Europe? 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:20.960 And in turns out that yes, they yes, they have 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:25.200 children in Europe. But more importantly, they don't have a 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:30.240 very cohesive poison center system, so if they were encountering 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.520 the issues, they really didn't have a great way of 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:37.920 communicating that to each other, certainly across countries. And so 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.080 because of that, they told us, yeah, we did have 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.679 a problem, but we didn't know the extent of the problem. 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.960 So now twenty years later, I wouldn't say we never 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.559 get a laundry pod exposure. We do, but they're they're 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.400 they're much fewer and far between. I think parents know 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:57.840 now to keep it away from children. I think that's 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.560 one of the big reasons why we see lag. I 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.160 think physicians are also much better prepared to take care 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.200 of these problems. They are and when they arrived to 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.200 the emergency department, we have a much better understanding of 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:14.320 what to do. So we rarely have the ICU admissions 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:18.520 the deaths that we recorded years ago, decades ago with 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.280 the introduction of the single use of laundry detergents. So 0:09:22.320 --> 0:10:01.920 I think that's a great success story to share with everybody. 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:17.679 I loved that story so much, erin so much. Yeah, 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.680 I feel like I remember when tide pods and like 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:24.000 Tidepod Challenge was a thing on TikTok or something a 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.240 few years ago, and then I never really thought, like, 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.840 why are tiepods so bad? I just assumed all detergents 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.960 were sabably not good for you. 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.120 And that like more people just were eating these because 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:36.920 they're cute and like good looking. 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:41.280 For your right and also to just learn how the 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.280 whole process worked, to be like we see this, what 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:47.959 is happening, Let's get to the bottom of it, how 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:49.880 do we stop it? Beautiful? 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.280 And also like the working across industry and like government 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.199 and like other bodies like that was so it's so interesting, 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:00.559 Like wow, I'm and to. 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:05.120 Hear from an expert. Thank you so much, doctor Doyon 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.440 for sharing that story with us, and you are going 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:10.680 to be hearing so much more from her in next 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:15.240 week's episode. To be continued, But first, Hi, I'm. 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:17.959 Erin Welsh and I'm Erin Allman Updike. 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:19.920 And this is this podcast will kill you. 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.080 And today, if you haven't guessed it, we're talking about 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:29.200 poison control. Yes, we are so excited. We say this 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:31.920 every single time, but we are so excited for this 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.680 episode or should we say these two episodes? 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.439 I mean, there is so much more to poison control 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:41.479 and it is all so fascinating. 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:41.800 Erin. 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.679 You have been talking about your intellectual crush on toxicologists 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.720 and toxicology for ages, and so I really feel like 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.360 we're we're digging deep, but not even as deep as 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.760 we could, Like we're covering so much ground because there's 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.079 so much ground to cover when it comes to poison control, 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.280 we're not even digging that deeply, know I When. 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.280 You first Aaron brought up the idea of covering poison 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.840 controls like as a topic on this podcast, I was like, okay, 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:12.280 Like I love toxicologists, all of them, and I love 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.160 the field of toxicology, but I was like, I have 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.800 no idea, like how to do an episode the way 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.080 that we usually do things. And turns out can we 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:21.400 do it? 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:21.640 Sure? 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.240 Can can we do it? Over and over again. I'd 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:28.360 love to oh yeah, yeah. 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:30.280 So just to give you a little bit of a 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.160 rough idea of how the structure of these episodes are 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:35.040 going to go, what we're going to do in this 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.720 first episode is kind of share the story of how 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:44.439 Poison Control came to be from its humble beginnings in Chicago, 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:49.239 Illinois spoilers all the way to this like beautiful nationwide 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.679 system that we have today. How did that process begin? 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:56.320 Who who looked at this need and said, oh, yeah, 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.920 we should do something about this. Yeah, So that's going 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:00.239 to be this first episode. 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.000 It's going to be thrilling. You might not think that, 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.280 like you would ever have wondered like how did Poison 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:09.160 Control Center come to exist? But after this episode you're 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:11.800 going to be like, I'm sorry, I will never not 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.319 think about this, I know, and it will be your 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.320 new Roman empire? Is that they these days? Is that 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:17.920 still a thing? 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:20.480 I don't know. Maybe by the time this comes out, 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:26.559 probably not. And then next week we're going to get 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.720 the chance to interview the provider of our first hand account, 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.840 doctor Suzanne Douyon, who is not just the provider of 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:39.640 our first hand account, she is the medical director of 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.240 the Connecticut Poison Control Center. Oh my gosh, she's also 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.960 an associate professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:51.160 I am so thrilled we're going to get to ask 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.000 her all kinds of behind the scenes questions about like 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.520 how what goes on at poison control centers? Who do 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.000 you have to be to work at a poison control center? 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.720 Or what kind of calls do you get? What? Like, 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:04.160 what what happens? 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.800 What do you what does one do in poison centers. 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:10.600 It's gonna be such a great episode. It was such 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.439 a fun conversation. We got super nerdy. 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:14.480 Oh yeah we did. 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.360 But before we can get into any of that, it's 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:19.280 quarantin any time. 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.800 It certainly is what are we drinking this week? 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.480 This week we're drinking Name your Poison? 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:26.600 Yeah? 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:27.200 You know. 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:32.200 I have these sweet sweet glasses that say name your 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.280 Poison on them, and they have a bunch of different 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.680 poison names on them. And I think I've used one 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.920 once for arsenic maybe I did Paris green or something 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:42.600 that sounds right. But I have more, so now I 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:44.880 have to pick which one I want to use. I 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.240 love them. I'm so excited to get to use these. 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.320 I mean, we should have any time, but yeah, we 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.160 should have split into however, many episodes you have of 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.160 these glasses like that many poison episodes. 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:57.920 Honestly, what I need to do is go back in 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.040 there and be like, Okay, what can we do? What 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.280 can we cover for future sos? Add it to our 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:06.480 long list of ideas that never is never ending. But 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:12.880 in this, name your poison it is. It's delicious. It's whiskey. 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.160 Name your whiskey. Really, I think a lot of whiskeys 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.760 will work with this, probably not like a heavily peated scotch, 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.720 but a lot of them will work. And then peaches 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:24.480 and a little bit of lemon juice, some simple syrup. 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.720 It's simple, it's delicious, it's amazing, it really is. 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:31.720 Check it out. We'll post full recipe for that quarantini 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.720 as well as our non alcoholic plusy Brita on our 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.200 website This podcast will Kill You dot com and all 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:38.640 of our social media channels. 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:40.800 Are you following us on social media? 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:41.560 Are you? 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.560 You should be? You've got some pretty stellar content coming out. 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:47.480 If I do say so, do you. 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:48.760 Toot our own horn like. 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:56.680 We've got reels, We've got you know, other posts. That's 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.080 all we've got. We've also got a website though, which 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.440 is pretty sweet. Website has all kinds of cool things, 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.440 you know. We've got transcripts. We've got a submit your 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.520 first hand account form, which is amazing thanks to everyone 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.600 who has ever submitted their first hand account. We've got 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.560 links to merch We've got music by Bloodmobile. We've got 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:20.600 links to our bookshop dot org affiliate account, our Goodreads list, sources, things, 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:25.360 the list goes on. Yeah, all right, can we get 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.000 to like the episode already? 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.600 Yes, Aaron, please start us off with how the heck 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.320 we got to hear? Aaron? 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.800 I will. Let's take a quick break, and then that 0:16:36.960 --> 0:17:14.840 is exactly what I'll get into. It's midnight. In six hours, 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.119 you're supposed to be heading to the airport for a 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:21.480 two week trip to I don't know, say, Scotland. And 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.600 even though you promised yourself that you'd be fully packed 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.639 well before now, with enough time to get a full, 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:33.159 glorious eight hours of sleep, that promise has long since 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:37.040 been shattered. Tossing in that extra pair of just in 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.880 case socks, you zip your bag and you sit back, 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.520 breathing a long sigh of relief. It's finally over, but 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.480 your mind is still restless, and it starts to run 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.359 through the list of non packing things you're supposed to 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:55.160 have done. Water the plants, check, clean out the fridge, check, 0:17:55.760 --> 0:18:00.639 leave instructions for the dog sitter check. Oh God, realized 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.760 you haven't given the dog his flea and tick medication. 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.200 What if the dogs that are takes into the park 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.520 and he gets tons and tons of ticks. You scrounged 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:12.000 around for the front line and kneel down next to 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:16.600 your peacefully sleeping dog. Because it's late and because you're 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.320 desperate to crawl into bed. Your brain doesn't register the 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.600 bold lettering on the frontline package stating to open away 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:29.920 from your face in all caps, complete with illustrations, and 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:35.000 you twist open the applicator inches from your face. A 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.800 burning sensation in your eye alerts you to the fact 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.919 that something has gone horribly wrong, that a drop of 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:46.280 who knows what chemicals has found its way into your eye. 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.760 Panic coursing through your body. You run to the sink 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.119 to flush out your eye, but the burning doesn't cease. 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.000 What do I do now, you think, Should I go 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.920 to the er? Have I permanently damaged my eye, who 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.040 could possibly have the answers. I don't even want to 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.040 go on the internet. Then it hits you poison control 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.640 with one phone call. The reassuring voice on the other 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.240 end tells you that you don't need to go to 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:14.960 the er, that you should keep flushing your eye, and 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:20.159 that you're gonna be okay. As someone who personally witnessed 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:25.760 this entire incident, my favorite thing. 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:27.760 Erin is that from the first line, I was like, Oh, 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:31.840 I know this, I owe the story. This is a real. 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:36.920 Life scenario, a real life scenario. But yes, as a 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.960 witness to this, it was really amazing to see this 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.760 resource that I had seen mentioned, I had read on 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:49.720 so many medication packages and other packages for my whole life, 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.320 had never used myself, and then to finally see it 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:54.959 be used, and I was just like, this is an 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.600 absolute gold mine of information that anyone could use at 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:05.560 any time to get potentially life saving instructions. But even 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.040 though it may seem like it's always been around, that's 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.600 how it seems to me, it most definitely has not. 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:15.959 And so that's the story that I want to tell today. 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.400 The need for poison control centers is clear to all 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.040 of us, whether we've used them or not. But who 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.879 first recognized this need and decided to do something about it. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.080 I'll get to the who in a bit, but first 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.159 let's get into the need, the why that motivated the 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:39.080 who to create poison centers. That sentence was very confusing. 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:39.800 But I loved it. 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:45.000 We'll get there. Poisons, as in substances that have the 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.480 capacity to cause harm or death to humans, have been 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:53.520 around since the dawn of humanity, whether accidental like eating 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:57.479 a poisonous mushroom or intentional like lacing someone's dinner with 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:02.320 arsenic poisoning has been something humans have contended with forever, 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.000 and if you haven't listened to our book club episode 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.120 with doctor Noah Whiteman about his book Most Dangerous Poison 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.560 from a couple weeks ago, here's your cue to check 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:17.119 it out. For millennia, the concept of poison primarily included 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:21.359 substances found in nature, whether from a plant, an animal, 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:27.400 or a mineral slash metal and accidentally encountered, slash ingested, 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:32.040 or administered with the explicit goal of causing harm. The 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:35.720 Industrial Revolution shook things up a bit, as the number 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:39.800 of people working with or using toxic substances, both natural 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:44.879 and artificial in manufacturing rapidly increased, and poison grew to 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:52.680 encompass those occupationally encountered substances as well, But largely going 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:56.439 into the twentieth century, poisons were seen as specific instances 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:03.119 poisonings tied to certain substances rather than ambient toxins, unless 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.480 you were talking about workplaces where the threat could be environmental, 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:12.400 and with the exception of certain medications where paraphrasing Paracelsus 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.960 from the sixteenth century, the dose makes the poison. Poisons 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:20.840 weren't really seen as a super common household item, which 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:23.320 I think is a really interesting thing to think about, 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:27.440 because if you asked me to think about the poisons 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.879 that I would encounter on a daily basis, I'm like, oh, well, 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:34.280 you know, there's a lot of chemicals in underneath my 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.280 sink in my laundry room, like in my garage, there 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:40.360 are things that are absolutely toxic. 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:42.600 Right anti freeze, the stuff I used to clean my 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:43.639 toilet lea. 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:48.399 Yeah, Like there's a lot. And that has not really 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.879 that's been a more recent development over the course of humanity, 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:55.800 or at least like for most people encountering on a 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:56.800 day to day basis. 0:22:57.200 --> 0:22:57.600 I don't know. 0:22:57.880 --> 0:22:59.760 I just thought that was a really interesting shift. 0:22:59.920 --> 0:23:02.119 Is interesting because you don't you don't think about it, 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:06.119 and I think too probably like we probably don't often 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:09.720 think of those things as poisons, right, but we would 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:13.879 think of them as poison us or hazardous to our health. 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:16.679 And so it's also that like distinction of like is 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:20.320