Find Your Local Poison Control Center

Program the Poison Help Number – 1-800-222-1222 – into your home and cell phones so you have it handy when you need it.

  Poison Control

The mission of the Poison Center is to prevent poisonings, save lives, and limit injury from poisoning. In addition to saving lives, the Center decreases health care costs of poisoning cases.

  TOXBASE

The primary clinical toxicology database of the National Poisons Information Service.

 The Best: Deadly Poisons, Ingested or Inhaled

Botulinum (ingested) It’s hard to rank the lethality of toxins, but experts agree that botulinum – several orders of magnitude deadlier than sarin – is the gold standard. Your nervous system fails and you die in extreme pain. Works miracles on wrinkles, though.

Illegal Pot Farms Are Poisoning California’s Forests

Secret growers are taking advantage of the state’s remote stretches of public land—and the environmental impact is severe.

The Toxins That Threaten Our Brains

Leading scientists recently identified a dozen chemicals as being responsible for widespread behavioral and cognitive problems. But the scope of the chemical dangers in our environment is likely even greater. Why children and the poor are most susceptible to neurotoxic exposure that may be costing the U.S. billions of dollars and immeasurable peace of mind.

A Brief History of Women Putting Poison in Their Lovers' Food

For many reasons—money, jealousy, or even a way out of an abusive relationship—poison has remained an effective weapon for women throughout history.

Everything you need to know about ricin poison

Ricin is one of the most poisonous substances on Earth and it's scarily easy to make.

How to Cook Without Giving Anyone Food Poisoning

You're probably going to be fine, but let's cover the basics just in case.

Litvinenko poisoning: polonium explained

Polonium is one of the most toxic substances known. According to some sources, it is up to a trillion times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide. It is radioactive because it emits alpha particles (helium ions). Because these are easily absorbed by other materials, even by a few thin sheets of paper or by a few centimetres of air, polonium has to be inside your body to damage you.

Love Canal and the Poisoning of America

"Industry has shown laxity, not infrequently to the point of criminal negligence, in soiling the land and adulterating the waters with its toxins." So says a recent report from a House investigative subcommittee. The report adds that as deposits of dangerous industrial wastes proliferate, the authority charged with eliminating the hazards, the Environmental Protection Agency, has done little to search out such sites and compel offending companies to clean them up.

Moonshine Poisoning Is Still a Massive, Deadly Problem Worldwide

After nearly a hundred people were killed by drinking bootleg liquor in Mumbai over the weekend, it's hard not to wonder when the problem of poisonous booze will end.

The 'Horrifying' Consequence of Lead Poisoning

Exposure to the toxin leads to higher risk of miscarriages, new research finds, in addition to other long-lasting effects.

The Chemist’s War

The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences.

Tips to Prevent Poisonings

Safety Tips for You, Your Family, and Friends...Unless noted, the safety tips were adapted from the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ poison prevention tips for children and adults

When It's Not Poisoning Us, the U.S. Water System Is Robbing Us Blind

People can go into such extreme debt over unpaid water bills—even incorrect ones—that they lose their homes.

The day I was asked to poison someone

I wasn’t allowed to know who, but the screenwriter wanted me to poison and kill off one of the soap characters.

A Global Overview of Poison Treatment Apps and Databases

Acute poisoning is a serious health problem that is associated with high mortality. Management of acute poisoning cases in the critical care settings is the biggest challenge due to the difficulty in identification of poison involved. Immediate information about the poisoning and its management is crucial in the early diagnosis, treatment, and in the prevention of poisoning complications.

A Growing Number of Young People Are Attempting Suicide by Self-Poisoning

In most cases, the young people used substances that were easy to find and access. The most commonly abused substance was acetaminophen, followed by ibuprofen, then atypical antipsychotics—like aripiprazole—which are increasingly prescribed not only for psychosis, but also for more-common cases of depression.

Death by Poison - A New American Epidemic

This increase in poisoning isn’t from accidental ingestion of mushrooms or lead or some other environmental toxin. It’s from accidental overdoses. And those overdoses mainly arise from one culprit - opiates.

Farms, More Productive Than Ever, Are Poisoning Drinking Water in Rural America

One in seven Americans drink from private wells, which are being polluted by contaminants from manure and fertilizer.

For Young Kids, Medicine Poisoning Can Happen Faster Than You Think

According to a report released this week by Safe Kids, a young child goes to the emergency room for accidental medicine poisoning 67,000 times a year. That's one child every eight minutes -- a 30 percent increase over the past ten years.

How to Minimize the Risk of Food Poisoning

Don’t assume that because the food was locally grown or from a farmers’ market, it’s free of potential hazards. Large producers operate under strict rules to prevent contamination; small local farmers may not adhere to the same constraints.

Poison Panic

Arsenic – more properly arsenic trioxide – is a highly poisonous white powder. It was very cheap, a by-product of metal industries, and ordinary Victorians could buy it from their local chemist, or even their grocer, as poison for rats and mice. It had little or no flavour – Robert Christison, daredevil toxicologist, had put some on his tongue, and discovered that it had a very slight sweet taste. Mix it in with gruel or stew, and the recipient would be none the wiser.

Popularizing Controversial Science: A Popular Treatise on Poisons by Mateu Orfila (1818)

In the nineteenth century toxicologists participated as experts in criminal poisoning trials and wrote reports at the request of judges and lawyers. In court, they were expected to provide expert advice to lay audiences (juries, judges, lawyers) and, as their conclusions could be decisive in establishing the final verdict...

The Chemist’s War

The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences.

The History of Poison

Listen on Apple Podcasts...

The Poisoning of an American City

The first thing many residents noticed after water from the Flint River began flowing through their taps was the color. Blue one day, tinted green the next, sometimes shades of beige, brown, yellow. Then there was the smell.

We’re closer to learning when humans first daubed arrows with poison

The early use of poison is one more indicator of an advanced repertoire of behavioural and technological traits that have characterised our species from the earliest times. The problem is that it’s not easy to identify the remnants of ancient poisons.

Young people are poisoning themselves at alarming rates with over-the-counter drugs

There’s been a dramatic uptick in self-poisonings, particularly among girls and young women. There are ways to help.