The Food and Drug Administration now requires a warning label on the side of toothpaste tubes. People who swallow more than a brushful, the advisory says, should "seek professional assistance or contact a poison control center immediately." But poison specialists say that for toothpaste to cause any noticeable health problems, someone would have to swallow at least a full tube, and by then vomiting would almost certainly have been spontaneously induced. Poison control centers received 12,855 toothpaste-related calls in 1997, twice as many as before the warning went into effect. Of all the calls, only one case was serious: a teenager who got toothpaste into an eye.

[Ed.: On my tube, the warning appears next to another note that reads: "For best results, squeeze from the bottom and flatten as you go up."]

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