OFFICER UGG, MR YUK, UNCLE BARF...AD NAUSEA: CONTROLLING POISON CONTROL, 1950-1985.

The article presents a historical analysis focusing on the arrival of acute poisoning as a fully institutionalized social problem in the U.S. It examines reasons why hospitals rushed into poison control as well as why, despite a high incidence of poisonings and over two million hotline calls annually, hospitals are now abandoning poison control. Efforts to plan and consolidate health services have always been hotly contested and resisted, particularly by the American Medical Association and other health provider associations. Critics have even argued that distortions in services were caused by the disorganized and redundant efforts of planning agencies themselves. As a component of the health care "system," poison control services exhibited the same erratic development and disorganization as the larger health industry. However, in contrast to the larger world of health care, poison control centers since the late 1970s have been in a widespread process of consolidation and regionalization.