Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 117.djvu/2907

 117 STAT. 2888

PUBLIC LAW 108–194—DEC. 19, 2003

Public Law 108–194 108th Congress An Act Dec. 19, 2003 [S. 686] Poison Control Center Enhancement and Awareness Act Amendments of 2003. 42 USC 201 note. 42 USC 300d–71 note.

VerDate 11-MAY-2000

13:59 Aug 30, 2004

To provide assistance for poison prevention and to stabilize the funding of regional poison control centers.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Poison Control Center Enhancement and Awareness Act Amendments of 2003’’. SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

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The Congress finds the following: (1) Poison control centers are our Nation’s primary defense against injury and deaths from poisoning. Twenty-four hours a day, the general public as well as health care practitioners contact their local poison centers for help in diagnosing and treating victims of poisoning and other toxic exposures. (2) Poisoning is the third most common form of unintentional death in the United States. In any given year, there will be between 2,000,000 and 4,000,000 poison exposures. More than 50 percent of these exposures will involve children under the age of 6 who are exposed to toxic substances in their home. Poisoning accounts for 285,000 hospitalizations, 1,200,000 days of acute hospital care, and 13,000 fatalities annually. (3) Stabilizing the funding structure and increasing accessibility to poison control centers will promote the utilization of poison control centers, and reduce the inappropriate use of emergency medical services and other more costly health care services. (4) The tragic events of September 11, 2001, and the anthrax cases of October 2001, have dramatically changed our Nation. During this time period, poison centers in many areas of the country were answering thousands of additional calls from concerned residents. Many poison centers were relied upon as a source for accurate medical information about the disease and the complications resulting from prophylactic antibiotic therapy. (5) The 2001 Presidential Task Force on Citizen Preparedness in the War on Terrorism recommended that the Poison Control Centers be used as a source of public information and public education regarding potential biological, chemical, and nuclear domestic terrorism. (6) The increased demand placed upon poison centers to provide emergency information in the event of a terrorist event

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