Prof Michael Eddleston is a clinical toxicologist who’s work’s major aim is to reduce deaths from pesticide and plant self-poisoning in rural Asia, a cause of over 200,000 premature deaths each year and a key global means of suicide. To do this, he performs clinical trials in South Asian district hospitals to better understand the pharmacology and effectiveness of antidotes and community-based controlled trials to identify effective public health interventions. This work is complemented by translational studies of antidotes in minipig models of poisoning in a large animal critical care laboratory that he established in Edinburgh, work with sociologists and anthropologists to better understand the meaning
of self-harm, and work with the WHO and FAO to aid implementation. To support this work, he has set up the University’s Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention (CPSP) and a new NIHR RIGHT Centre for Acute LMIC Poisoning. This latter centre will build on my work assessing the clinical pharmacology of antidotes for various poisons, including alcohol, cyanide, opioids and flumazenil.