The Mr. Yuk symbol was developed in 1971 by the Pittsburgh Poison Center of Children’s Hospital. It is copyrighted exclusively for teaching prevention education through affiliated hospitals and poison centers.

Research conducted early in 1971 indicated that the old skull and crossbones used in the past to identify poisons had little meaning for the children of the 1970’s. The old symbol had been exploited in movies, cartoons, commercial products and amusement parks to denote happy, exciting things like pirates and adventure. The Pittsburgh Pirates used the symbol as its team logo.

In a university-conducted testing program, children at daycare centers were shown six symbols which were affixed to identical bottles of mouthwash often found in family homes. The symbols included a red stop sign, the skull and crossbones, and four others.

At the beginning of the test, each child was told that he might find bottles like these at home and was asked to identify any bottle he might not like to play with.

The symbol that proved to be least attractive to the children was Mr. Yuk.

It was interesting to the researchers that the most popular symbol to the children was, in fact, the skull and crossbones.

One little boy declined to pick up a bottle marked with the green, scowling-faced symbol because he said, “he looks yucky.” And so children not only selected Mr. Yuk as an unappealing poison warning symbol, but one named him as well.

The Washington Poison Center, which was then Seattle Poison Center at Children’s Hospital in Seattle, was the first poison program outside of Pittsburgh to adopt Mr. Yuk as its poison warning symbol in 1973.

Mr. Yuk is used in many states and also in Europe, Asia and Iceland. Last year, several million stickers were distributed nationwide.

Realizing that any symbol must be taught to be effective, poison centers using the Mr. Yuk symbol emphasize education and awareness to teach both adults and children about the hazards of toxic products in the home and environment. Each Mr. Yuk sticker distributed in Washington State comes with the national toll-free phone number for poison centers.

Mr. Yuk stickers are available at many pharmacies and at the Washington Poison Center by calling, 1-800-222-1222. To order large quantities of Mr. Yuk stickers or other Washington Poison Center materials, click here.

Click here to play the Mr. Yuk song!

Click here for Mr. Yuk public service announcements (PSAs).