It’s poison prevention month

-Thousands of Iowa kids will hear presentations in their classrooms this week on the subject of poison as part of National Poison Prevention Week. Tammy Noble is the education coordinator for the Iowa Statewide Poison Prevention Center in Sioux City. She says among the college students delivering talks in Iowa this week, dozens of students in the University of Iowa’s College of Pharmacy are visiting eastern Iowa elementary schools. Noble says the poison hotline gets about 70 calls a day that involve human exposures to poison, in addition to dozens of other calls that involve the safe disposal of drugs and chemicals. She says it’s important to get the word out to schoolkids this week.Between 600-thousand and one million children nationwide poison themselves each year. Last year, more than 22-thousand Iowans were reported poisoned, 12-thousand of them were children, and seven died. The tollfree number is 800 222-1222 or information can be viewed at “www.poisonprevention.org”.