BACKGROUND Fire eater's lung (FEL) is a distinct form of acute chemical toxic pneumonitis, which is caused by aspiration of flammable petrochemical derivatives used by street performers for 'fire eating'. The optimal management of this condition has not yet been determined. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate patient characteristics, clinical features, treatment, and outcome of...

OBJECTIVE Poisoning events, including exposures to hazardous materials, can involve multiple victims. Regional poison centers often are contacted in such events involving multiple victims. METHODS We searched our poison center database over a nine-year time period for all calls involving a poisoning event in which more than two people were exposed to the same substance. We then matched each p...

Positively, to this reader at least, the most fascinating part of the book was Chapters 4 through 8. This section deals with poisoned weapons, early Spanish exploration, native exploits, and the preparation of raw curare. These are not usually included in the "dry" histories. Also interesting were the stories of Humboldt, Waterton, and Gill. Negatively, the unfortunate part of this book is that...

In 1983, the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) piloted a project to collect epidemiological data on poison exposures reported to poison centers nationwide.’ Sixteen participating poison centers reported 25 1,012 human poison exposures during that year. Forty-seven centers participated in the National Data Collection System in 1984, reporting 730,224 human poison exposures.2...

Objective This paper describes analyses of health seeking behaviors from two surveillance datastreams: Poison Control Center (PCC) calls and Emergency Department (ED) visit records. These analyses were conducted in order to quantify behaviors following the development of symptoms after water contamination exposure and to understand the motivation, decision-making and timing behind healthcare se...

INTRODUCTION The development of syndromic surveillance systems to detect bioterrorist attacks and emerging infectious diseases has become an important and challenging goal to many governmental agencies and healthcare authorities. This study utilized the sharp increase of glow product-related calls to demonstrate the utility of poison control data for early detection of potential outbreaks durin...