Medicine Cabinet Requirement
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Activated Charcoal For Aspirin Poisoning
An open bottle on the bathroom floor and two frightened faces, of mother and child, make up the opening scene of a common American drama: aspirin poisoning. It happens thousands of times annually. Poison control centers reported 17,995 cases in 1967, most involving children under 5. Many cases are unreported. Dozens of deaths result from such poisoning.To counter this situation, a New York investigator recommends that the bottle of white tablets in most medicine cabinets be joined by a bottle of black powder: activated charcoal. Activated charcoal (AC) has long been advocated for initial treatment of acute aspirin intoxication, said Gerhard Levy, Pharm. D., professor and chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutics, State University of New York at Buffalo.But oddly enough, he said, no controlled quantitative study has apparently ever been made to see just how effective AC is