Poison power centers crossed the U.S. person seen a leap successful reports of children ingesting a benignant of medicine cough medicine, according to a survey published Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration.
The survey warned that poisonings owed to the cause benzonatate accrued successful children each twelvemonth from 2010 to 2018.
Benzonatate, a non-narcotic cough medication, is sold nether the marque sanction Tessalon. It was archetypal approved by the FDA successful 1958 for children ages 10 and up.
According to the study that was published in the diary Pediatrics, much than 4,600 cases of poisoning of children were reported to poison power centers.
While determination were cases of accidental overdoses each twelvemonth of the study, astir of the cases progressive the intentional usage of benzonatate successful children 10 and older.
An FDA official speculated that the summation successful benzonatate poisoning whitethorn beryllium an unintended effect of efforts to reduce the prescribing of narcotics, said FDA spokeswoman Chanapa Tantibanchachai.
Tantibanchachai noted that implicit the aforesaid time, prescriptions for cough medicines that incorporate codeine and hydrocodone dropped.
The fig of children prescribed benzonatate cough medicines accrued by 62%, from astir 217,000 successful 2012 to 351,000 successful 2019. At the aforesaid time, the fig of cases of overdose rose, according to the study.
Around 1% of those nether 17 who accidentally overdosed connected the cause died. Seventy-nine percent who accidentally overdosed had nary broadside effects, 2% had mean broadside effects, and little than 1% had important broadside effects, the survey reported.
Among the older 133 children who intentionally overdosed connected benzonatate, 66% had nary broadside effects and 13% had mean broadside effects. Researchers with the survey said they recovered nary large broadside effects oregon deaths successful this property group.
“Benzonatate is an appealing cough and acold medicine owed to its non-narcotic properties,” Dr. Elise Perlman, an exigency section doc astatine Cohen Children’s Medical Center successful Queens, New York, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
“For this reason, determination has been a notable summation successful benzonatate prescriptions; however, determination has besides been a concomitant emergence successful toxicity and adverse effects reported,” said Perlman, who was not progressive successful the study.
Symptoms of an overdose see restlessness, tremors, convulsions oregon coma.
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