Proclamation 5025—National Poison Prevention Week, 1983

The annual observance of National Poison Prevention Week affords communities across America a special opportunity to increase citizen awareness of the dangers of accidental poisoning.

In recent years the number of poisonings among children has fallen dramatically, due in large measure to the introduction of child-protective packaging. At the community level, poison centers are an essential resource in reducing the incidence of serious injury resulting from accidental ingestions. By providing timely diagnostic and treatment information to medical practitioners and first aid instruction to anxious parents, poison centers have successfully worked to save lives.

While poison centers have proved invaluable, they often provide "after-the-fact" treatment. This year, National Poison Prevention Week will underscore the equally important role poison centers can play in preventing child poisonings "before the fact."

Working together as sponsors of National Poison Prevention Week are national medical, pharmacy, nursing, dental, and hospital associations; health and safety groups; organizations representing manufacturers, packagers, and distributors of consumer products, including medicines; the media; and government agencies. Most of these groups have State and local chapters and affiliates that, along with community organizations, are the backbone of what has become a successful nationwide poison prevention program.

To aid in encouraging the American people to learn of the dangers of accidental poisoning and to take appropriate preventive measures, the Congress, by a joint resolution approved September 26, 1961 (75 Stat. 681), requested the President to issue annually a proclamation designating the third week in March as National Poison Prevention Week.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the week beginning March 20, 1983, as National Poison Prevention Week.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 7th day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and seventh.

RONALD REAGAN