Veterinary & Human Toxicology 38 (4) August 1996EP

Krenzelok Pharm. D : - Pittsburgh Poison Center, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh,

TD Jacobson PhD, FLS : - Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University,

JM Aronis PhD : - Keck Center for Computational Biology, University of Pittsburgh.

Plant exposures are the fourth most common category of agents responsible for calls to poison information centers (1). They rank fourth only behind exposures involving medications, household cleaning agents and healthy beauty aids; 86% of the plant exposures involve the pediatric population.

All exposures reported to the American Association of Poison Control Centres national data collection system for 1985-1994 were extracted from an electronic file of all plant exposures in the AAPCC database over the same time period and analyzed using a relational database. Only data which meets specific quality control parameters are included.

There was one fatality. An adult female intentionally ingested an unidentified Ilex species and digoxin. The digoxin was probably responsible for the fatality.

REFERENCES

1. Litovitz TL, Felberg L, Soloway RA et al: 1994 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers Toxic Exposure Surveillance System. American Journal of Emergency Medicine. 13: 551-597, 1995.