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FDA Cold Medicine Warning
July 8, 2010 Updated Jul 8, 2010 at 4:03 PM EDT


The Food and Drug Administration has issued an advisory to the parents of young children. The warning is about medicine most of us consider pretty harmless: over-the-counter cold and cough medicine. The FDA is now warning parents: if your child is under the age of two, stay away from cough and cold medications, unless you've talked with your doctor. According to FDA, these medicines been blamed for a hundreds of injuries and a handful of deaths. Dr. Anitha Leonard, a Pediatrician, says "All medications have side-effects, if this particular medication has side-effects and it's not working then you're putting your child in danger." What's more, she says these medicines don't really work. In one recent study, researchers divided 100 kids with a cold into three groups: two were given cough medicine. The third was given a placebo-sugar water. Dr. Leonard adds that "The things that they looked at was suppressing the cough, how much sleep the child got, as well as how much sleep the parents received, and there was no difference between the placebo as well as the two over the counter medications." She says when your baby is sick, it's hard not to reach into the medicine cabinet, "And if it makes you feel better that you're giving your child something to make them feel better, just remember that something may have some side-effects as well that could potentially do more harm for your child than could actually make them better."

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