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To the Editor: Developmentally disabled adults are at a high risk for unintentional poisoning. Plant foliage surrounding residential facilities and day-training centers serving these adults may pose a significant potential poisoning hazard. During a 4-week period in August to September 2000, 4 unintentional plant poisonings of developmentally disabled adults, including 1 fatality, were reported to the Illinois Poison Center by such residential facilities.

Report of Cases

A 45-year-old developmentally disabled man was found unresponsive 1 hour after he was seen eating twigs and plants. Prehospital telemetry demonstrated asystole, and he was pronounced dead in the emergency department. Postmortem examination revealed 300 mL of mulch, grass, twigs, and pine needles resembling those of the yew plant (Taxus spp) in his stomach, and no other apparent cause of death. Toxicologic analysis of the bile and blood confirmed the presence of alkaloids from the yew plant.

During this time, 3 other developmentally disabled adults, aged . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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