{"id":23801,"date":"2025-10-31T10:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T10:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/23801\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T10:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T10:24:07","slug":"adults-made-up-the-majority-of-last-halloween-poison-control-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/23801\/","title":{"rendered":"Adults made up the majority of last Halloween Poison Control calls"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York\u2019s relationship with the Internet is toxic. <\/p>\n

Adults overwhelmingly made up the majority of subjects who called the city\u2019s Poison Control Center<\/a> last Halloween \u2014 but not because they\u2019re suddenly more liable to munch on a glow stick than tiny trick-or-treaters.<\/p>\n

Older generations are more likely to dial 212-POISONS looking for help than parents of young kids, who are increasingly turning to \u201cDr. Google\u201d for the antidote, one expert told The Post.<\/p>\n

Last Halloween, the city Poison Control Center received 191 calls. zulfiska \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a 30-something-year-old, you\u2019re going to Google. But if you\u2019re older than that, you\u2019re probably going to feel more comfortable calling somebody,\u201d explained Maria Mercurio-Zappala, associate director of the Poison Center within NYU Langone\u2019s Emergency Medicine team, Division of Medical Toxicology.<\/p>\n

Last Halloween<\/a>, the NYC Poison Center received 191 calls for exposures \u2014 108 of which were for subjects over the age of 20 years old.<\/p>\n

Just 59 of those holiday calls were made for children under the age of 5, with another 14 made for the 6-12-year-old age group and another 10 calls for the 13-19-year-old age group, according to data provided by the city Department of Health.<\/p>\n

The data says less about which generation is getting into toxic substances and more about where the victims are looking for answers, according to Mercurio-Zappala.<\/p>\n

Most glowstick incidents involving adults are typically drug-related, according to Maria Mercurio-Zappala. bluesnote \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are more comfortable with the phone and looking things up on the phone, and that\u2019s what they\u2019re going to do unless you show them that what they may be looking at is wrong,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Google is not 100% perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say, however, that adults are less susceptible to toxins or accidental poisonings on the spooky holiday.<\/p>\n

Cosmetics, toys and glowsticks were the top three exposures last Halloween<\/a>, according to the DOH, the latter of which is a common chemiluminescent that Poison Control experts see plenty of teens and adults bite their teeth into at other times of the year. <\/p>\n

Parents of young adults tend to consult Google over calling the Poison Center, Mercurio-Zappala said. Rawpixel.com \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was really more common a few years back, but that\u2019s typically what happens with adults. It\u2019s mostly substance use \u2014 they typically use ecstasy or something like that, and then they have glowsticks with them and then they end up chomping on the glowstick,\u201d Mercurio-Zappala said.<\/p>\n

Kids tend to ingest Halloween makeup and toys every year, with prescription and over-the-counter medications making up a smaller proportion of the toxin calls.<\/p>\n

The main takeaway this Halloween is to call the New York City Poison Center when in doubt \u2014 even if it\u2019s to get a second opinion after consulting Dr. Google, urged Mercurio-Zappala.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s relationship with the Internet is toxic. Adults overwhelmingly made up the majority of subjects who called…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[245,5237,57,9,197,11,10,15449,58],"class_list":["post-23801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-halloween","tag-health-department","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-life","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-poison","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}