Thousands of Children Seen in ER due to Cold Medications

January 2008

The U.S. government stated that cough and cold medicines send about 7,000 children annually to emergency rooms. This comes less than two weeks after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned parents that over-the-counter cough and cold medicines should not be given to children under the age of 2.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers used reports of children 11 and under who had taken cough and cold medications and ended up in 63 hospitals studied from 2004-2005. The study found:

• About 1,600 of the 7,100 children were under the age of 2.
• Nearly two-thirds of the cases involved children ages 2 to 5.
• Two-thirds of the cases were children who took the medicine unsupervised.
• One-quarter involved children where parents gave the proper dosage.
• Of the children given the proper dosage, about one-third were younger than 2, but more than half were ages 6 to 11.

The emergency room case reports did not detail symptoms, and the cases were not followed through to see if any deaths resulted. The reports that did have detailed symptoms included hives, itching, drowsiness, unsteady walking, and unresponsiveness.

The study will appear in the April issue of Pediatrics, a journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.