Cold Medicine For Toddlers May Do More Harm Than Good
Posted September 30, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Your toddler is up all night coughing, tired during the day, and her nose won’t stop running. What to do? According to the Food and Drug Administration, nothing. For children under two years of age, let the cold run its course.
The age guideline on many medication labels reads “consult a physician” for children under two. Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Baltimore’s health commissioner, finds this laughable. “It does not make sense, in the absence of information, to say ‘consult a physician,’ because they do not have superhuman powers. They cannot make a product safe or effective.”
The FDA is recommending that the “consult a physician” warning be removed completely.
The Centre for Disease Control said that in two years, more than 1,500 toddlers and babies were taken to emergency rooms because of some of the ingredients in common medications.
Since 1969, the FD reported 123 deaths associated with decongestant and antihistamines in young children.
According to the FDA, children under two should not be given decongestants and children under six should not be given antihistamines.
Toddler’s Dimetapp (Photo courtesy Getty Images/David Paul Morris)
