Despite the child-resistant caps on almost all prescription medicines, more than 9,000 children younger than 6 are hospitalized annually in the United States for the accidental ingestion of the drugs; three-quarters of them are 1 or 2, a new study in Pediatrics reports.
The most often implicated medicines contained buprenorphine, used for treating narcotic addiction and sometimes as a pain reliever; and clonidine, a substance in medicines for high blood pressure, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and migraines, among other ailments, the researchers found.
Opioid pain relievers like Vicodin and anti-anxiety drugs like Valium and Xanax accounted for about 28 percent of the hospitalizations.
The scientists used data from a surveillance system maintained by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and controlled for the number of prescriptions issued.
"Individually packaged pills might be one way to make these products safer," said the senior author, Dr. Daniel S. Budnitz, the director of the medication safety program at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But, he added, "the message now to caregivers is to keep medicines up and out of sight of children, especially immediately after use."
ActiveStyle on 11/24/2014