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More Bad News about Cough Medicine

CDC finds 7,000 children treated in ERs for side effects

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

January 29, 2008

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The news about cough medicine just keeps getting worse. Not only is it potentially hazardous to small children and largely ineffective for adults, it can also result in a trip to the hospital.

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say an estimated 7,000 children ages 11 and younger are treated in hospital emergency departments each year because of the non-prescription drugs. The study was published online today by the American Academy of Pediatrics journal, Pediatrics.

This study found that children ages 2 to 5 accounted for 64 percent of all adverse drug events from cough and cold medications, and nearly 80 percent of the events for this age group were from unsupervised ingestions.

Among all age groups, 93 percent of the children did not require hospital admission, however, one-fourth needed additional treatment to eliminate the medicine from their bodies.

The CDC researchers reviewed 2004-2005 data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System – Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance project to describe emergency department visits due to cough and cold medications.

"Parents need to be vigilant about keeping these medicines out of their children's reach," said Dr. Denise Cardo, director of CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. "They should refrain from encouraging children to take medicine by telling the children that medication is candy."

Cardo also said that adults should avoid taking adult medications in front of young children.

Recently, such products marketed to infants and toddlers less than 2 years old were voluntarily withdrawn from the market due to safety concerns. The safety of these products for children ages 2 to 11 is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The researchers say parents also should not use products intended for older children to treat young children, and, as stated in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's mandated label warning, parents should keep all cough and cold medications out of the reach of children. Parents and caregivers should throw away previously purchased products marketed to infants and toddlers age 2 and younger.

The over-the-counter cough and cold products examined in this study include these ingredients: decongestants (for unclogging a stuffy nose), expectorants (for loosening mucus so that it can be coughed up), and antitussives (for quieting coughs).

The medications may also have included antihistamines (for sneezing and runny nose) in combination with the ingredients above. The terms on the label could include "nasal decongestants," "cough suppressants," "expectorants" and "antihistamines."

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