Halving Appeal For Emergency Aid For Children Under Two Years

Halving Appeal For Emergency Aid For Children Under Two Years.
Three years after nonprescription infant dead medicines were bewitched off the market, predicament rooms treat less than half as many children under 2 for overdoses and other adverse reactions to the drugs, a inexperienced US government study shows. A voluntary withdrawal of over-the-counter cough and freezing medicines for children aged 2 and under took effect in October 2007 because of concerns about concealed harm and lack of effectiveness. The following year, the withdrawal was extended to medications intended for 4-year-olds, the researchers say.

And "I dream it's good that these products were withdrawn, but it's not accepted to take care of the entire problem," said lead researcher Dr Daniel S Budnitz, of the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Since more than two-thirds of these exigency bailiwick visits were the result of young children getting into medicines on their own, problems are seemly to continue, he said. The report is published online Nov 22, 2010 in Pediatrics.

For the study, Budnitz's rig tracked visits to US hospital danger departments by children under 12 who were treated for adverse events tied to over-the-counter cold medications in the 14 months before and after the withdrawal. Although the whole number of visits remained the same before and after the withdrawal, amidst children under 2 these visits dropped from 2,790 to 1,248 - more than 50 percent, the researchers found.

But, as with crisis department visits before the withdrawal, 75 percent of cases involving the flu medications resulted from children taking these drugs while unsupervised. Whether these emergency department visits concerned cough and cold medicines for children or adults isn't known, Budnitz said.