Household Products
Consumers buy more than a quarter of a million different household products each year that are used in the home on everything from medicating and exterminating. Although not always perceived as risk factors for poisoning, if they are misused, it could cause illness, injury, or even death. Although these materials are needed in the home, there are a couple of prevention strategies that can be followed to prevent poisonings. This includes proper storage of poisons and following all product instructions. Although this sounds simple, according to the National Safety Council, 6,300 deaths in poisoning deaths were caused by household products including drugs, medicines, poisonous houseplants, cleaning products, and pesticides. The majority of these deaths were in adults ages 25 to 44 from not following instructions properly (www.nsc.org).