Poison Protection

Young children have a maddening way of getting into bottles of potentially lethal medicines and household products. Last year, despite countless stomach pumpings in hospital emergency rooms, more than 350 tots died as a result of this deadly tendency. Such fatalities may soon be greatly reduced, thanks to a new container that has proved itself relatively impregnable in youthful hands.

Sold under the trade name Palm-N'-Turn, the new containers are made of plastic and topped with a flexible cap fitted with luglike projections. The lugs fit snugly into notches in the neck of the container. To open one, an adult must press downward with the palm, then twist the cap open while the lugs are free. In recent tests, few children could do this, even when they saw jelly beans inside. Of 1,000,000 of the Palm-N'-Turn containers tested in Ontario, Canada, only 21 caps were pried free, and 18 of the 21 had been improperly locked by parents. In the Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base areas of Tacoma, Wash., a 16-month test of Palm-N'-Turn caps reduced cases of child poisoning from drugs by 92%.

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