FDA Bans Cold Meds for Kids
January 17th, 2008
If your kid is suffering through a runny nose and cough this winter, you may be tempted to reach for the same cold medicine you take for your own cold symptoms.
According to an FDA ruling issued today, however, cold medicines for children, especially children under the age of 2, can be potentially life threatening.
According to MSNBC,
Thursday’s advisory marks the government’s first ruling on the issue: Don’t give the drugs to children under 2. And it comes now because the FDA is worried that parents haven’t gotten that message despite all the publicity last fall.
They may still have infant-targeted drugs at home, or they may buy drugs meant for older children to give to hacking tots instead, said Dr. Charles Ganley, FDA’s nonprescription drugs chief.
“We still have a concern,” Ganley said. “It falls out of people’s consciousness. We’re still in the middle of cold season right now.”
Time to head into your medicine cabinet and throw away all of those boxes of children’s cold and flu meds!
January 17th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Well, it looks like my kids, being 7 and 11, aren’t in that group. But really? We don’t use cold medicines, anyway! When Alyssa was small (and we were smokers!), she ALWAYS had a cough. I was always buying her the cough medicine suckers and stuff. When she would go to her grandparent’s house (who smoked IN their house), THEY would give her ROBITUSSIN! Well, when we quit and she was suddenly only sick when she visited them, we knew exactly what was causing her cough. And KNOWING that…that all they had to do was not smoke…made me even CRAZIER when they WOULD smoke and just dope her up with ADULT cough medicine. We eventually had to threaten to take away visitation and over the past few years, she’s gotten much better. But that just made me realize that here we all were, giving her drugs for what we THOUGHT she had and we were all WRONG. It really makes you look at what kind of drugs you’re putting into your body (and your kids’) and if you REALLY need it or not. Now we keep Benadryl (in case of allergy attacks), Children’s Tylenol (When water doesn’t cure Nick’s headaches), and itch cream around. And that is IT.
If they ever get something that chicken soup, fluids and rest can’t fix, we’re going to the doctor anyway.
Haha, long comment today.
I was wondering all morning what the FDA release entailed…thanks, Tabetha!