Marketing of legalised cannabis: a concern about poisoning

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Relationship Between Scorpion Stings Events and Environmental Conditions in Mainland France

In the world, the impact of environmental conditions on the number of scorpion events was evaluated in North Africa,Middle East, and the Amazonian region but not in Europe. In mainland France, scorpion species described are Buthus occitanus (Amoreux, 1789), Belisarius xambeui (Simon, 1879) and 4 Euscorpiidae: Euscorpius concinnus (Koch, 1837), Euscorpius italicus (Herbst, 1800), Euscorpius tergestinus (Koch, 1837), and Tetratrichobothrius flavicaudis (De Geer, 1778). We aimed to describe the impact of environmental conduction on the number of scorpion events. For this, a retrospective multi-center study was conducted with data from the French poison control centers files about scorpion events between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2020. During the study period, 975 incoming calls for scorpion events were recorded and 574 were related to scorpions native to mainland France and Corsica: B. occitanus (n = 86), Euscorpiidae species (n = 222), B. xambeui (n = 1), and undetermined species (n = 265). Cases were mostly reported along the Mediterranean coast, along rivers, and in cities with a trading port. The number of scorpion events was linked to the rivers' water level, rivers' flow, temperature, sunshine, and pluviometry (P < 0.05 for all variables). B. occitanus need warmest and driest environment than Euscorpiidae spp. A link between the severity of the envenoming and climatic condition or seasonality was not demonstrated

Poison control centres and alternative forms of communication: comparison of response rates between text message and telephone follow-up

INTRODUCTION: In recent years, the number of patients managed by poison control centres (PCCs) has increased without a proportional increase in the number of physicians. To improve efficiency without neglecting patient follow-up, some PCCs have begun using text messages. We evaluated the difference in response rates between text messaging and traditional telephone follow-up. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective, monocentric, non-randomised cohort study was conducted using data from calls made by the New Aquitaine PCC between February 27, 2019, and March 31, 2019. Patients were contacted up to three times by a phone call or short message service (SMS). RESULTS: For the analysis, 823 patients were included. At the end of follow-up, the response rates were similar in the phone call and SMS group (94 vs. 94%; p = 0.76) with median [interquartile range] response times of 0 min [0; 27 min] and 29 min [6; 120 min], respectively. The response rates did not differ in subgroups stratified according to sex, self-poisoning vs. relative response, age class, and solicitation during working hours vs. outside of working hours (all p > 0.5). Moreover, health practitioners required 2.4-fold more time to call than to send text messages (p < 0.001), and all practitioners were satisfied or very satisfied with text messaging implementation. CONCLUSION: Patients had good adherence to text messages. Text messages are easy to use, rapid, and allow the physician to easily prioritise follow-up without occupying the emergency line. Additionally, the costs of installation and maintenance are low for text message systems; these low costs facilitate the implementation of such services in various medical situations