Walk into your neighborhood drugstore and you will likely find hundreds of competing cold remedy products; and many of these products are marketed specifically to children. In fact, there are so many different competing children’s cold remedies on the shelves that parents often find themselves in a bit of a quandary trying to pick one. How can you tell which of these children’s cold remedies work? Well, according to the FDA’s recent announcement. The answer is “none of them.”
The results of several recent meta-studies show conclusively that the children’s cold remedies found in your local drugstore don’t work. The studies examined best-selling brands such as Tylenol Infants Drops, Pedia care infant drops, and others, and found that not only are these products ineffective in treating colds in small children, they can actually cause more harm than good in children under six years old.
On October the 11th, 2007, several major children’s cold remedy manufacturers voluntarily removed their products for babies and toddlers from store shelves. This voluntary removal is seen by industry analysts as a type of preemptive move by drug manufacturers, and an attempt to lessen the impact of the FDA’s ruling.
Amazingly, these same children’s cold remedies have been freely available for sale for decades, and have been used by millions of American children according to the Food and Drug Administration’s own statistics. But according to Sean Hennessey, an FDA expert who has studied the children’s cold medicines, the new data shows “they don’t seem to work.”
The new FDA recommendation will apply to all cold medicines marketed to children under six containing antihistamines and decongestants. One notable exception: the new recommendations do not apply to children’s cough medicines containing expectorants.
And although the current recommendations for these medications are “nonbinding,” they could eventually lead to banning of certain products, tighter regulatory control or even mandatory “do not use” labeling.
To add insult to injury, the FDA panel also indicated that there is absolutely no evidence that children’s cold remedy products work in older children either. The current recommendation states that there is no medical benefit from these products to children under six, but FDA panelists were quick to point out that the medications have not been found to be effective for children six to 11 either.
For those of us who grew up with endless drugstore aisles of children’s cold products, the future could bring something quite different. For the moment at least, it appears the only children’s cold medicines you can trust for your little one, are those prescribed by your child’s doctor.
Related Web Directory Categories:
