Poisoning in children in Japan

The Japan Poison Information Centre (JPIC) received 31510 inquiries about poisoning in children under 6 years old being exposed to poison in the fiscal year 1995. The most frequently implicated products were tobacco (20%) and the peak age for ingestion of household products was 1 year and younger (83.3%). Especially, the inquiries related to children less than 1 year old were 35.7% of the cases. In contrast, the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) data showed that the most common poisonings were due to pharmaceutical products and the inquiries related to children less than 1 year old were only 12.1%. The objective of this report was to find out the poison exposure in children in Japan and to compare the data with that of AAPCC.