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Cold Drugs Put 7,000 Children A Year In ER, Study Says

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The Washington Post

Published: January 29, 2008

WASHINGTON - More than 7,000 children get rushed to emergency rooms each year after suffering adverse reactions to cough and cold medicines, according to the first national estimate of the risks posed by the widely used remedies.

Most of the problems occur in children ages 2 to 5 who get into the medications on their own, researchers said, based on their analysis of data from a nationally representative sample of 63 emergency rooms in 2004 and 2005.

"Any time a child ends up in the emergency department because they had access to a bottle of medication, that is a problem that could be prevented," said Daniel Budnitz of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which did the research.

The report comes as the Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to further restrict the use of the products because of concern about risks and questions about effectiveness. Both critics and supporters of the products seized on the new report to support their positions.

"This is a lot of trips to the emergency room for products that have no known benefit," said Joshua Sharfstein, Baltimore's public health commissioner and leader of a coalition of pediatricians who petitioned the FDA to restrict promotion of the products for use by children. "It's time to pull the plug on the marketing of these products."

But Linda Suydam of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, an industry group, said the report showed that the problem stemmed primarily from parents giving the wrong dose or failing to make sure the products were out of the reach of children.

"These really are situations where parents were perhaps confused and gave the wrong dosage or inadvertently left out their medication in a way that children could get into them," she said. She defended the effectiveness of the products and their safety when used properly, saying parents want access to them.

"Parents want medicines that help their children feel better," she said.

Last fall, the industry voluntarily withdrew all products marketed for children younger than 2 but maintained that the products were safe and effective for older children.

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