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Show Parents Draw Warning On Poison Dangers Mrs. Housewife there is a killer in your home! But you don't need weapons to defend yourself, Utah Safety Council says. Just common sense and a lot of caution. The killer? Poisons. They lurk everywhere in the medicine cabinet, under the kitchen sinkt on dressing tables. You'll even find them on food shelves, in the workshop and in your cleaning closet. These camouflaged killers in the home take more than 1,000 lives annually. They take tolls throughout the year about 120 lives a month. Most frequent victims are children chil-dren 5 years of age or younger. But right up there as home poison poi-son victims are persons in the 25-44 and 45-64 age groups. The types of accidental poisoners poison-ers are as varied as the containers contain-ers they come in bleach, permanent per-manent wave solution, shampoo, nail polish remover, furniture polish, art supplies, bug killers paint removers. Regardless of the killer in just about every instance there's an accomplice to the crime carelessness care-lessness or ignorance. For example, some potential poisoners are properly labeled but a lot aren't. Doctors aren't always sure if a product is poisonous. poi-sonous. And some ingredients, harmless to most persons, can kill others especially children. In many instances, the killer is an otherwise harmless object aspirin, for example. About 1 out of 5 children treated for accidental poisoning in a recent year had swallowed aspirin, the Council reports. Kerosene is a troublesome household commonplace, common-place, especially in rural areas and in the south. Old houses, too can be booby-traps booby-traps for children. Tots can be poisoned by peeling paint on window sills and frames, or by crumbling plaster. Each can cause lead poisoning. The way to prevent poisoning? 1. Education. Parents should be made aware of the dangers lurking in their homes. 2. Stricter state and federal laws. Ingredients should be listed list-ed on bottles or cans containing poisonous substances even products valuable to our everyday every-day living. Best way, though, is to prevent the poisoning. How? By following these rules: (1) Store medicines out of the reach of children, (2) Don't put poison near foods it's too easy to confuse con-fuse the two, (3) Don't take medicine med-icine in the dark, (4) Keep poisonous poi-sonous substances out of soft-drink soft-drink bottles, used jelly jars or pans, for example, and (5) Have a locked poison compartment in your home. |