Deadly Over-the-Counter Drugs
Even though steps have been taken to reduce potential harm, drugs you can buy without a prescription can still be dangerous and even deadly to kids.
Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) discovered that opioids caused more than half of the fatal poisonings in children 5 years old and younger, which is much higher compared to 2005. Even with improved regulations, over-the-counter drugs still bring about deadly poisonings in this age group. These findings that were put out today by Pediatrics magazine highlight the need for immediate action to stop more deaths due to poisoning.
More than half of poisonings that have been reported involve children 5 years of age and younger. This age group is the most at risk for emergency visits due to accidental poisoning from drugs. Although child safety packaging has brought down the fatal poisonings in young kids, there’s still an increasing problem with opioid usage which results in the death of children by poisoning.
It is difficult for researchers to study how many young kids are dying from poisoning in the United States. To help figure this out, each state has a team that looks into why these deaths happen and what can be done to prevent them. This team uses different disciplines and even the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention to collect and report data from these reviews.
The experts from the Poison Control Center and the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at CHOP released a study showing how many children die of poisonings every year in America. They also were able to tell how many deaths each year could be caused by opioids, which are drugs used to reduce pain.
From 2005 to 2018, researchers looked at data from 40 states in the U.S. and found that 731 children aged 5 years old or younger had died due to poisoning. This information was taken from the National Fatality Review-Case Reporting System.
Researchers discovered that more than 2 out of 5 cases of people dying from poisoning were kids 1-year-old or younger, and more than 65% of those deaths happened at home. Additionally, around one-third of the children who died from poisoning were under the care of somebody other than their parents. Opioids (a strong kind of drug) were the main cause for these deaths, followed by nonprescription pain medication, decongestants and allergy medicines. In 2005, opioids accounted for 24.1% of deaths related to poisoning but that percentage increased to 52.2% in 2018.
In the early 2010s, some plans were put into action to decrease the use of opioids which brought about a short term reduction in opioid-related deaths. However, over the last decade heroin and artificial opioids such as fentanyl have caused this reduction to disappear. Even though there are medication safety measures like unit dose packaging that have had some success limiting accidental opioid consumption, these plans don’t cover all types of prescribed and illegal opioids.
Daniel J. Corwin, a doctor from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said that in order to prevent kids from getting very sick or even dying from poisons, it’s important to combine two things: teaching adults how to take care of kids better and creating programs that will help everyone out at the community level. For example, making sure everyone has access to a medicine called naloxone – this medicine can quickly treat opioids overdoses and it is safe for children too.
This passage is about a study published in Pediatrics magazine. The study looked at what kind of poisoning can be dangerous for infants and young children in the United States. It also explored whether pesticides had an effect on kids’ health that was studied in Tianjin from 2009 to 2018, as well as discussed a case report and review of pulmonary actinomycosis in children.
