Saratoga County officials are marking national poison prevention week with a new partnership.
Republican County Board of Supervisors Chair Phil Barrett was joined by local officials and health professionals Wednesday to announce the county’s increased poison prevention efforts.
“There’s a growing number of exposures to children due to cannabis edibles, something that has become a reality in our society in New York state since the state made cannabis legal for public purchase. For people 20 and over sedatives, pain medications, anti-depressants, alcohol, cardiovascular drugs. Those are the largest items,” said Barrett.
Almost a year ago, the county launched a Poison Data Dashboard [include link] to collect data on frequent substance exposures from six local agencies.
County Health Department Commissioner Daniel Kuhles said poisoning is one of the leading causes of deaths across the nation.
“90% of poisonings occur within the home. We know from the data from Upstate poison control center, 76% of calls from Saratoga County involved unintentional exposure to a substance, 43% of calls involve kids 5 and under. Those numbers are important and the reason why we’ve entered this partnership,” said Kuhles.
Upstate New York Poison Center Operations Director Michele Caliva. They cover 54 counties across the state.
“We have a multi-faceted approach to managing poisons. We have a hotline. It’s 24/7, it’s free, it’s confidential. It’s for the general public and it’s for healthcare providers. So, we’ll get calls from a parent whose child just got into an edible and the staff that’s made up of registered nurses and pharmacists will make a decision whether the kid can be treated at home or go to the hospital,” said Caliva.
Caliva adds they do real-time toxico-surveillance.
“Every eight minutes our information gets uploaded to a national database. So, we’re able to say, ‘look, we think something’s happening.’ And Saratoga and the dashboard help us do that every single day. It’s absolutely phenomenal what’s happening with that dashboard. As a matter of fact there were three times this week that I sang the praises of this dashboard. The idea here is it becomes the benchmark for the rest of the counties in New York state,” said Caliva.
The organization’s Medical Director Vincent Calleo says better collaboration results in better health emergency outcomes—something he hopes to model for the entire country.
“Over the last year, in 2024, there were over 1,100 calls from Saratoga County to the Upstate New York Poison Center. With that information we were able to provide real-time guidance in terms of how to best treat patients at home or in healthcare settings. In addition to that, we were really able to help take the information we had to turn it into educational opportunities that our public health educators were really able to go out and educate the community on to help prevent future poisonings,” said Calleo.
Patty Kilgore directs school-based services for the Saratoga County Prevention Council.
“Most parents are well aware of how to keep their children safe from alcohol. They’re well aware how to keep their children safe from cleaning products. What they have not thought a lot about is nicotine products particularly in the form of liquid and vapes, pouches, and or cannabis in particular edibles,” said Kilgore.
Kilgore adds that her organization is looking to partner with local dispensaries to provide free locked boxes to keep children from accessing marijuana products.
Upstate New York Poison Center Operation’s hotline is 1-800-222-1222.