Yuk Warns British of Poison’s Ills

Mr. Yuk, whose putrid green face has peered from poisons for almost two decades in America, is now warning European children.

Although the look is the same, the name has changed because feminists in Liverpool, England, think the courtesy title is, well, yucky.

Yuk, plain and simple, is far more palatable.

“There was some sensitivity about the ‘Mr.’ We’ve never had that problem anyplace in the United States I know of,” said Richard Garber, director of the Institute of Education Communications at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

The bright green sticker with the stuck-out tongue and squinting eyes, touted as “a face only a parent could love,” made its international debut in Liverpool in late October. There was some speculation as to whether Yuk should be replaced by some other distasteful term because Yuk is a common surname in Liverpool’s Asian community. But ethnic groups said they weren’t offended.

None of the 46 U.S. poison centers using Mr. Yuk has altered the name. Each center’s phone number encircles the sticker copyrighted by Children’s Hospital.

Garber, a former teacher and guidance counselor who helped create Mr. Yuk, isn’t miffed over the missing “Mr.” “I’d like to keep Mr. Yuk because that’s the way we started, really. But Mr. Yuk does not have to be a mister.”

Experts say the need for Mr. Yuk--by whatever name--is as great as when it was introduced in 1972 as an alternative to the skull-and-crossbones.

About 70 of the 130 centers that pool data got 1.3 million calls about toxic exposures in 1988, the most recent figures available, said Dr. William Robertson, president of the American Assn. of Poison Control Centers Inc. Two-thirds involved children. In all, the death toll was 545, 26 of them children.

Experts agree most poisonings occur at home and can be prevented. The 46 centers in the Mr. Yuk program expect to distribute free 3 million sheets of stickers in 1990 as part of that prevention.

“People really don’t know what a poison is,” Garber said. “Most people will think of a poison as something that’s ugly, that kills bugs, that cleans drains and things like that. The products the kids are getting into are products used in the home every day, attractively packaged and scented.”

Pharmaceutical items like aspirin and cough medicine are the main attraction for children, followed by cleaning substances, plants, and health care and beauty products, according to Garber.

Youngsters usually swallow such substances at mealtime, he said. “Kids are hungry, they’re thirsty, and mom is busy.”

Mr. Yuk strips away most, if not all, of the appeal, and being instantly recognizable helps, Robertson said.

Telephone polls in the Seattle area show that more than 95% of the public is familiar with Mr. Yuk, said Robertson, who serves as medical director of the Washington Poison Network and the Seattle Poison Center. Other warning labels--Officer Ugh, a rattlesnake with “NOSIOP” (poison spelled backward), a skull next to a telephone receiver--just don’t seem to be as memorable.

“When we say, ‘Do you know what Mr. Yuk is,’ they say ‘Yes’ and they can describe it over the phone,” he said. “It’s a vehicle that has helped to acquaint the entire community, not just parents of little kids.”