’Tis the Season for Safety and Holiday Cheer

A Rutgers poison expert offers safety tips for the holidays

The hectic nature of the holiday season can distract people from paying attention to what’s happening around them, especially in their homes and when visiting others.

“Whether you’re traveling or hosting this year, accidental mishaps involving potential dangers are expected to happen, especially when many hide in plain sight,” said Bruce Ruck, managing director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

The dangers of some hazards like cleaning products and medicines are well known. However, other hazards like carbon monoxide, button batteries and small magnets hide unsuspectingly in homes. It only takes seconds for common, everyday items to go from safe to dangerous.

Bruce Ruck

Managing Director, New Jersey Poison Control Center at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

Potential poisons can be found in every home – from holiday decorations to children’s toys and foods to adult recreational products, including alcohol, psychedelic mushrooms and cannabis (marijuana) edibles.

“The dangers of some hazards like cleaning products and medicines are well known,” Ruck said. “However, other hazards like carbon monoxide, button batteries and small magnets hide unsuspectingly in homes. It only takes seconds for common, everyday items to go from safe to dangerous.”

Ruck gives the following safety tips below to prevent accidental injury:

• Give guests a safe space to keep potentially dangerous items, including marijuana edibles, medicines, vapes, nicotine products and hand sanitizers. Guests can lock these items in their luggage or a lockable drawer, cabinet or closet.
• Use caution with antique ornaments and those not made in the United States. These items may be decorated with harmful lead paint.
• Don’t burn wrapping paper, foil, garland or tinsel. Inhaling the fumes can be harmful.
• Decorate with plants that aren’t poisonous if you have young kids or pets.
• Many flavored baking extracts contain high amounts of alcohol, the same alcohol found in liquor, wine and beer. Keep extracts out of sight and reach of children and pets.
• Snow spray should only be used in areas with good air circulation to prevent inhaling potentially harmful fumes. Keep this product away from flames.
• Carbon monoxide (CO) kills hundreds of people every year and makes thousands sick. Have working CO detectors on every level of your home. If the CO alarm sounds at any time, leave immediately and call for help when outside. If you have questions about carbon monoxide poisoning, call the Poison Help line at 1-800-222-1222. If traveling out of the U.S., consider packing a portable CO detector. Some countries don’t require hotels and other vacation rentals to have CO detectors. 
• Keep household items with lithium button batteries (or coin batteries) and small magnets out of sight and reach of children and pets. Batteries and magnets are choking hazards and can cause serious and irreversible damage to internal organs.
• Alcohol poisoning can cause serious illness and lasting health effects. Know how much alcohol you are drinking. Empty unfinished alcoholic drinks, especially holiday cocktails, eggnog and punches to prevent children and pets from accidentally drinking alcohol.
• Use simple food safety steps to prevent food poisoning, which can cause severe illness. Cooking foods to the right temperature kills germs and prevents people from getting sick. Use a food thermometer to check that foods are cooked to a safe internal temperature.
• Although water-absorbing gel beads aren’t toxic, they are extremely dangerous to anyone at risk of swallowing them or sticking them in the ear or nose, especially young children, people with developmental disabilities, people with dementia and pets. These products expand to dangerous sizes in the body, causing choking and life-threatening blockages or ruptures of internal organs.
• Keep items dangerous to pets up high and out of sight and reach – chocolate, candy, products containing xylitol (a sugar substitute that may be described as wood sugar, birch sugar and birch bark), bread, dough, fatty meat scraps, raisins, currants, alcohol, medicine and recreational and illegal drugs. These items can cause serious health effects and death.

If you think someone came in contact with a dangerous substance, contact the New Jersey Poison Control Center immediately for medical treatment advice. Anyone may call 24/7 for medical help – children, teenagers and adults. Call or start an online chat. If someone isn’t breathing, hard to wake up or having a seizure, call 9-1-1.