About us

The Illinois Poison Center is a non-profit health service that provides comprehensive and trusted information and treatment advice on potentially harmful substances via the free, confidential 24-hour 800-222-1222 helpline staffed by medical professionals specially trained in toxicology.

The IPC serves as the state’s leading source of medical consultation and advanced toxicology training for healthcare professionals.  It also offers education on poison prevention and information on potentially harmful substances to the general public via community outreach and a free online Poison Prevention Education Course (Bonus: free Continuing Education Credit).

IPC saves lives and improves patient care by working hand-in-hand with Illinois hospitals. We give expert medical advice to doctors, nurses and paramedics treating patients exposed to potentially harmful substances. IPC saves the people of Illinois $60 million annually by resolving 92% of poisoning cases from the public over the phone. This success rate prevents unnecessary 911 calls and visits to a doctor or hospital.

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About this Blog

Get a “behind the curtains” look at what it’s like to work at the largest and oldest Poison Center in the country.  It’s fast-paced.  It can be stressful at times as we talk to worried individuals and parents. But we gotta tell ya — we love it.  It’s highly fulfilling to help people with their questions and especially in their moments of great need and anxiety.

We hope to share stories/cases with you — some uplifting, some humorous, and some serious — so that you really get a feel for what we do and learn about potentially poisonous substances that exist everywhere in everyday life.  We’ll also be providing practical tips to keep you and your family safe throughout the year.  No blog about poison exposures would be complete without a sprinkle of mind-bending facts and geeky, scientific  tidbits.

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About the Bloggers

Neeraj Chhabra MD/IPC Medical Director: Dr. Chhabra is a board-certified emergency physician and medical toxicologist who serves as the Director of Medical Toxicology and Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois Chicago and UI Health. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from Jefferson Medical College and completed residency training in Emergency Medicine at Cook County Hospital, followed by fellowship training in Medical Toxicology at the Toxikon Consortium in Chicago and in Clinical Ethics at the MacLean Center for Medical Ethics. He obtained a Master of Science in Clinical Research from Rush Graduate College. Dr. Chhabra has received research funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to address substance use disorders and improve healthcare delivery using machine learning.

 Carol DesLauriers, PharmD/IPC Vice President: Carol is a pharmacist and a Diplomate of the American Board of Applied Toxicology.  

Ben Weigel, MD/IPC Medical Director: Dr. Weigel is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and an attending physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He completed residency training in Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, where he also served as Chief Resident, followed by fellowship training in Medical Toxicology through the Toxikon Consortium in Chicago. Dr. Weigel’s academic and research interests focus on emerging drugs of abuse, poison center surveillance, and pediatric cannabis exposures. He is an NIH/NIDA-supported investigator through the ANTIDOTE Institute and actively collaborates on research examining trends in toxic exposures and substance-related harms across the United States.