Hundreds of Thousands of Children Suffer Bad Drug Reactions Yearly
Hundreds of Thousands of Children Suffer Bad Drug Reactions Yearly
More than half a million children in the United States have bad reactions or side effects every year from widely used medicines, according to new research reported by the Associated Press.
The number of children treated for bad drug reactions averaged 585,922 over a 10-year period. Some of these reactions required medical treatment and sometimes hospitalization.
Children younger than age 5 are most commonly affected, according to the report. Penicillin and other prescription antibiotics are among the drugs causing the most problems including rashes, diarrhea and stomach problems, AP reports.
Lead author of the study, Dr. Florence Bourgeois, a pediatrician with Children’s Hospital in Boston, warned parents to pay close attention when their children are started on medication since “first-time medication exposures may reveal an allergic reaction.”
The study appears in the October, 2009 issue of Pediatrics. It is based on visits to clinics and emergency rooms between 1995 and 2005.
