Emergency and poison control
If someone is unwell right now, call.
Do not wait for a web page. Contact your local emergency number or your national poison information centre, and tell them the person ate honey containing grayanotoxin. That is the whole of the advice, and it does not change.
In most of Europe and in much of the rest of the world, 112 reaches emergency services from any phone, including a locked one with no SIM.
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Call, or get someone to call
Emergency services if the person is fainting, confused, hard to rouse, breathing badly, or you are frightened. Your poison information centre if they are awake and talking and you want an assessment.
If you are not sure which, call emergency services. They would rather triage a call that turns out to be minor.
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Say what was eaten
Operators and clinicians will not have seen many of these. Naming the substance saves them time:
- “Mad honey”, or rhododendron honey, containing grayanotoxin
- Roughly when it was eaten, and roughly how much, if you know
- The symptoms, in plain words, and whether they are getting worse
- The person's age, and any heart or blood-pressure medication they take
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Stay with them, and keep the jar
Do not leave the person alone, and do not let them drive themselves anywhere.
- Keep the honey and any packaging or label — a clinician or a laboratory may want it
- Do the things the operator tells you and nothing beyond them
- Call back if the symptoms change before help arrives
What this page will not do
This page does not tell you how to treat anyone. There is no home remedy on it, no instruction to induce vomiting, no advice about what to give someone to drink, and no threshold amount below which a reaction can be waited out. We are a publication, not a clinician, and the only safe version of this page is one that routes you to people who can actually see the patient.
It also publishes no dose. Grayanotoxin concentration varies enormously between batches, so a quantity is not a number we can honestly print.
Numbers by country
The nine jurisdictions we track. If yours is not listed, use the emergency number printed on any local government or health service page, or ask an operator to route you.
| Country | Emergency services | Poison information | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 000112 from a mobile | Poisons Information Centre 13 11 26, 24 hours |
4 Aug 2026 |
| Canada | 911 | Poison centres are provincial. Ask the 911 operator to connect you, or use your province's centre. | 4 Aug 2026 |
| India | 112 | National Poisons Information Centre, AIIMS 1800 116 117 |
4 Aug 2026 |
| Netherlands | 112 | The NVIC advises clinicians, not the public. Call 112, or your huisartsenpost out of hours. | 4 Aug 2026 |
| New Zealand | 111 | National Poisons Centre 0800 764 766, 24 hours |
4 Aug 2026 |
| Philippines | 911 | National Poison Management and Control Centre, UP–PGH (02) 8524 1078 |
4 Aug 2026 |
| Singapore | 995 | Drug and Poison Information Centre operates in office hours. Outside them, call 995. | 4 Aug 2026 |
| United Kingdom | 999112 also works | There is no public poison line. In England, Scotland and Wales call 111 for non-emergency assessment; in Northern Ireland contact your GP out-of-hours service. | 4 Aug 2026 |
| United States | 911 | Poison Help 1-800-222-1222, 24 hours, routes to your local centre |
4 Aug 2026 |
| Not listed here | 112Works in much of the world | Search for your national poison centre on a government or health-service domain. We do not publish numbers we have not read on the authority's own page. | — |
Build note: this table is a blocking launch check
Every number above must be read on the issuing authority's own page and the verification date recorded before this page goes live, and re-verified on the same quarterly cycle as the Law entries. Do not carry these values across from this handoff on trust: three of the nine rows are deliberately not a number, because those countries have no single public poison line, and that nuance is the part most likely to be flattened into a wrong digit by a well-meaning editor.
The numbers are also the one part of this site that must work with no JavaScript, no webfont and no stylesheet. Every row is a real tel: link inside a real table, so the page degrades to a legible list of countries and numbers.
What to tell a clinician
Mad honey poisoning is uncommon enough that a doctor may be meeting it for the first time. These are the four things that shorten the conversation.
Name the toxin
Grayanotoxin, from rhododendron nectar. Also written andromedotoxin or acetylandromedol in older literature. It acts on the sodium channel and drives a vagal response.
Name the pattern
The combination reported most consistently is bradycardia with hypotension, often with sweating, nausea and blurred vision. It is the pair together that gets people admitted.
Give the timing
Published cases describe onset from minutes to a few hours after eating, and resolution over about a day with supportive care. Say when it was eaten if anyone knows.
List the medicines
Anything already lowering heart rate or blood pressure matters most, because the concern is additive. Bring the boxes if they are to hand.
For clinicians
Our safety and science pages carry the case-report citations, the reported presentation and timeline, and what the animal work does and does not establish. They are written for a general reader but every claim is sourced, so they are usable as a starting point for a literature search rather than as guidance.
Read next
Symptoms
What a reaction looks like from outside, and which signs mean call now.
9 min readEffects
The reported range, from mild and self-limiting to genuinely dangerous.
7 min readWho is at risk
The groups that appear repeatedly in the case reports, and the reasoning.
9 min readThe mechanism
What grayanotoxin is, how it reaches the honey, and what it does in a body.
13 min readThis page is information only and is not medical advice. It carries no advertising, no affiliate links and no seller names, and it is reviewed on the same quarterly cycle as the Safety section. Last reviewed 4 August 2026.