Cold drugs send 7,000 U.S. children to ERs

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Cold drugs send 7,000 U.S. children to ERs

Overdoses common among youngsters who took cough, cold medicines

WASHINGTON - Over-the-counter cough and cold drugs send an estimated 7,000 U.S. children under the age of 12 to emergency rooms every year, most for overdoses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Monday.

Because parents will continue to buy such drugs, better packaging might help protect young children, the researchers reported in the journal Pediatrics.

Two-thirds of the cases were children who took the drugs without supervision, but a quarter were children who acted unusually sleepy, had an allergic reaction or other ill effect after a parent gave them the recommended dose, the CDC team found.
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