About 7,000 children under the age of 11 are hospitalized in emergency rooms each year due to taking cough and cold medicines, the U.S. government said Monday quoting a study on both OTC and prescription medicines.
The study was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About two-thirds of the cases were children who took the drugs without their parents' supervision, and the other one-third cases involved children who received the proper dosage and developed an allergic reaction or some other.
Nearly two-thirds of the cases involved kids ages 2 to 5, and another one fourth were under 2, the study found.
Parents should not encourage children to take medicine by telling them it's candy, and parents should also avoid taking adult medications in front of kids, officials said.
The FDA will have to balance data like this against the medicines' benefits and other factors, said the centers' Dr. Melissa Schaefer.
The study followed a recent warning issued by the FDA that parents should keep their kids under age 2 away from the OTC cough and cold medicines.
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
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