HISTORY
The EAPCCT website
In 1997 the EAPCCT website was launched by Alessandro Barelli and Fabrizio La Mura from Rome, who served as webmasters and put in a great deal of work in setting up and realising the website. The focus of this website was to provide both EAPCCT members and non-members with electronic services and information.
The public section of the website is accessible to everybody.
The members' section of the site provides services exclusively to EAPCCT members. There a great deal of valuable information is available such as a membership directory and database, the membership fee payment platform, a news archive, the General Assemblies materials and archive, a direct link to the Journal Clinical Toxicology, a past congress materials archive, the board and working groups archives, and the archived Current Awareness (references on relevant clinical toxicological issues) provided by the Birmingham Centre.
As from 2003 the website had been renewed and further developed by the current webmaster Dr Hugo Kupferschmidt together with his web technician, the late Dr Clemens Holenstein from Zurich. For the first time congress registration and abstract submission could be done via the EAPCCT website. Another feature developed at that time is the membership forum which serves as a communication platform and early warning system for rapid exchange of alerts.
Since 2017 when Grupo Pacifico started to be the EAPCCT congress organizer, congress registration and abstract submission had been moved to a dedicated congress website.
The EAPCCT homepage can be accessed at the following address: https://www.eapcct.org.
EAPCCT – a reflection
by Hans Persson, Stockholm, January 2004
The importance of the EAPCCT for developments in European clinical toxicology and poisons information services is difficult to assess. The feeling and assumption is, however, that the Association has had a great impact, hardly possible to overestimate. Its great diversity of activities has helped to visualise and solve numerous problems and throw light on both challenges and possibilities. The EAPCCT has provided a forum for sharing experiences between centres, not only during the congresses, but in the every day work of poisons centres. This means that contacts are taken ad hoc with regard to special problems or unusual poisoning cases. But also administrative matters, e.g. on prevention, labelling, contacts with authorities etc, can be discussed on an informal basis. The mere existence of the Association has strengthened the poisons centre case, not least in relation to authorities and industry. The Association has also meant access to colleagues with a vast or specific experience on special topics. In this way the EAPCCT has offered a network, where poisons centres can meet and exchange experiences. Self-evidently, a supreme role of the Association has been to influence general and specific strategies for the treatment of different poisonings and to establish new therapeutic routines. This is a key role that has become more and more obvious and prominent over the years. EAPCCT congress participants have a high moral, higher than in any other congress I have attended! They all seem to be there, all the time. The meetings are very interactive and the atmosphere is one of warmth and friendliness. The world ‘family’ comes into my mind. Having attended these congresses for two decades now, more than half of the participants are familiar. Part of Europe - the whole of Europe - North America – the next step might be to embrace the world. There is a great, perhaps even urgent, potential for widening the scope. There is much to share with others, and much to learn. Forty years have passed. There were 47 founder members in Tours, France, in September 1964. The EAPCCT today includes 343 members. That is a substantial increase, but not enormous. Shall we aim at becoming many more? Probably not. The moderate scale of the Association is a precious advantage.
The importance of the EAPCCT for developments in European clinical toxicology and poisons information services is difficult to assess. The feeling and assumption is, however, that the Association has had a great impact, hardly possible to overestimate. Its great diversity of activities has helped to visualise and solve numerous problems and throw light on both challenges and possibilities. The EAPCCT has provided a forum for sharing experiences between centres, not only during the congresses, but in the every day work of poisons centres. This means that contacts are taken ad hoc with regard to special problems or unusual poisoning cases. But also administrative matters, e.g. on prevention, labelling, contacts with authorities etc, can be discussed on an informal basis. The mere existence of the Association has strengthened the poisons centre case, not least in relation to authorities and industry. The Association has also meant access to colleagues with a vast or specific experience on special topics. In this way the EAPCCT has offered a network, where poisons centres can meet and exchange experiences. Self-evidently, a supreme role of the Association has been to influence general and specific strategies for the treatment of different poisonings and to establish new therapeutic routines. This is a key role that has become more and more obvious and prominent over the years. EAPCCT congress participants have a high moral, higher than in any other congress I have attended! They all seem to be there, all the time. The meetings are very interactive and the atmosphere is one of warmth and friendliness. The world ‘family’ comes into my mind. Having attended these congresses for two decades now, more than half of the participants are familiar. Part of Europe - the whole of Europe - North America – the next step might be to embrace the world. There is a great, perhaps even urgent, potential for widening the scope. There is much to share with others, and much to learn. Forty years have passed. There were 47 founder members in Tours, France, in September 1964. The EAPCCT today includes 343 members. That is a substantial increase, but not enormous. Shall we aim at becoming many more? Probably not. The moderate scale of the Association is a precious advantage.
Brochures:
Hans Persson: EAPCCT 1964-2004 - A perspective over four decades (as booklet or in a high resolution print version as 6.4 MB pdf).
Hans Persson & Peter Hultén. The EAPCCT Encyclopedia of Toxicology 2014; 2: 544-6.
Hans Persson: EAPCCT 1964-2004 - A perspective over four decades (as booklet or in a high resolution print version as 6.4 MB pdf).
Hans Persson & Peter Hultén. The EAPCCT Encyclopedia of Toxicology 2014; 2: 544-6.
Last updated 08 02 2023