Thursday, October 11, 2007

Drug Makers Take Infant Cold Medications Off The Shelves

My son has had a cold for more than a week now. A couple nights ago, he woke up at 2 AM hacking and unable to sleep. We didn't have any infant decongestant in the house, so my husband ran to Walgreen's to get him some medicine so he could get back to sleep.

Well, I'm glad that my son was sick earlier than this week than today, because who knows what infant medicine is left on the shelf? I found an AP article on Excite saying that drug companies had pulled many infant medications off the shelves. Evidently, some parents are overdosing their children.

While I don't run to the medicine cabinet every time my little boy has a runny nose, there are times when it's very nice to have infant medicine. Like when it's 2 AM and your baby can't sleep. By taking the infant medications off the shelves, parents are left with fewer options to deal with their children.

With the wonderful availability of the internet, it's very easy to look up a dosing chart for infant's medications. I like to use the one here. Although, since they are taking the medicines off the shelves, they might end up taking the dosing chart off the internet as well.

Which leads us to the bigger question: with infant medications no longer available, what will parents do when their child is sick in the middle of the night and can't sleep? My guess is that many of them will be giving their infants children's medicines. Which doesn't really fix what the drug makers are trying to solve in the first place, does it?

No comments: