This Poison Center is Giving Me Heartburn
Peter Roskam, the seat-filler who claims to represent me in Congress, has been straining to pat himself on the back recently over his co-sponsoring of a bill (H.R. 3527) that reauthorizes funding of poison centers. (Yeah, real piece of groundbreaking work.)
I went ahead and read the bill, which is only a couple of pages long. There are a few lines about extending funding for the national toll-free number and the associated PR campaign through 2019. The bulk of the bill, though, is about changing 'certified' to 'accredited,' and 'certification' to 'accreditation.'
That seemed weird. Why was it significant? I browsed on over to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, the group that handles the accreditation, to find out. There was no such information available, but I did find a list of links to regional poison centers. I clicked on the one for Illinois. Nothing special there. At the very bottom of the page, though, is a logo for MCHC, the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council. Being the kind of person I am, I asked the Google about the MCHC.
Note: every other regional poison center, with maybe one or two exceptions, is housed in a hospital, a medical school, or a university hospital.
MCHC, it turns out, is a private non-profit trade association and lobbying firm for Illinois hospitals. While I haven't found anything to suggest that the Illinois Poison Center is substandard in any way, it seems a little strange. This company receives a substantial amount of government money every year. This company also lobbies the government on behalf of Illinois' hospitals.
Are there safeguards in place to prevent government funds from being used for lobbying? (Which, last I checked, was illegal.) I emailed Mr. Roskam that question, not really expecting a reply. (He never responds to me.)
I also emailed AAPCC to find out about the accreditation process. I'm curious how a private trade/lobbying company goes about getting accredited as a poison center. I received a reply that the person who handles that sort of info is out until January 6.
I'll post an update if/when I get some answers.
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