Charcoal 'no poison panacea'

A study in The Lancet reveals that multiple-dose activated charcoal has no effect on mortality amongst people who have poisoned themselves with toxic pesticides or plants. Researchers, led by David Warrell from Oxford's Centre for Tropical Medicine, studied Sri Lankan patients who had ingested pesticides or yellow oleander seeds. Activated charcoal, which is an effective treatment for the kind of overdoses of pharmaceuticals common in the developed world, is widely used to treat these sorts of pesticide poisonings. However, the research showed that the patients treated with charcoal were just as likely to die as patients who recieved no charcoal. The findings suggest that treatments for these kind of poisonings need to be rethought. Across much of rural Asia ingesting pesticides is the preferred way for many people to attempt suicide and it is estimated that self-inflicted pesticide posionings kill around 200,000 people every year.