Proclamation 5713 --
National Poison Prevention Week, 1988
By
the President of the
A
Proclamation
In
the 27 years our Nation has observed National Poison Prevention Week, thousands of children under age five have been saved
from accidental poisonings thanks to greater public awareness of poison
prevention and the use of child-resistant bottle and container closures. This
success story is due to the combined efforts of consumers, health
professionals, and government and industry. All these groups are represented on
the Poison Prevention Week Council. Through the annual observance of National
Poison Prevention Week, parents have been urged to keep household chemicals and
medicines out of the reach of young children. Poison control centers have helped
save lives by offering emergency advice to consumers who call when a poisoning
occurs. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has
required that potentially hazardous household chemicals and medicines be
packaged with effective child-resistant closures.
Data
recently compiled by CPSC show that the number of child poisonings has
decreased since child-resistant packaging began to be used. In 1972, when the
first drugs were required to have child-resistant packaging, 96 children died from
accidental drug ingestion. By 1974, the first year in which child-resistant
packaging was required for most prescription drugs, there were 57 fatalities.
In subsequent years, other products were required to have child-resistant
packaging, and the number of deaths due to ingestion of these drugs continued
to decline. In 1984, the last full year for which we have received information
on drug ingestion fatalities, there were 31 deaths.
Child-resistant
packaging has saved many lives, but there is more to do. We must remind new
parents and grandparents of the need to keep medicines and household chemicals
out of the reach of children. Underlying our poison prevention program is the
assumption that virtually all childhood poisonings are preventable.
To
encourage the American people to learn more about the dangers of accidental
poisonings and to take more preventive measures, the Congress, by a joint
resolution approved September 26, 1961 (75 Stat. 681), authorized and requested
the President to issue a proclamation designating the third week of March of
each year as ``National Poison Prevention Week.''
Now,
Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the
In
Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of October, in the
year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-seven, and of the
Ronald
Reagan
[Filed with the Office
of the Federal Register,