And parents think they are being good parents.
Please start to question AmeriKa's for-profit health care, Americans.
Your CHILD'S LIFE may be at stake!
"Pediatricians warn on drugs; No cold medicine for patients under 6, they advise FDA" by Andrew Bridges/Associated Press October 19, 2007
WASHINGTON - Cold and cough medicines should not be given to children younger than 6 because they don't help them and aren't safe, pediatricians seeking to curb their use told government health advisers yesterday. Such a prohibition would go beyond last week's move by drug makers to eliminate sales of the nonprescription drugs targeted at children under 2.
The doctors petitioned the Food and Drug Administration advisers seeking, in part, a government statement saying the medications shouldn't be used in children under age 6 either. The advisers began a two-day meeting to consider the issue.
[While the products are out there and the parents are administering?
No urgency for kids, huh? Just for war-spending, 'eh, government?]
The FDA has yet to act, in part pending a recommendation expected from a joint panel of outside specialists in pediatrics and nonprescription drugs, said the agency's Dr. Joel Schiffenbauer.
The medicines have been marketed for use in children for decades, with drug companies spending $50 million a year on heart-tugging ads in parenting magazines and elsewhere. Still, it has long been acknowledged there is little data from studies in the very young to show the medicines are safe and work. Some studies suggest they are no better than placebos in treating cold and cough symptoms in young children, the petitioners said.
[But hey, WE MADE a BUCK!!!]
"When a treatment is ineffective, its risks - if not zero - always will exceed its benefits," said Dr. Michael Shannon, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital Boston and a Harvard Medical School professor who was one of the petitioners.
The drug industry, meanwhile, maintains that the widely used medicines are safe and work but can lead to death and injury from overdoses or misuse in infants. It estimates children receive 3.8 billion doses of the medicines a year.
[In other words, it is the parents fault!
Even though the shit doesn't work and hurts the child!
Un-fucking-believable!]
"The vast majority of consumers are using these medicines properly, and serious adverse events are rare," said Linda Suydam, president of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, which represents drug makers.
The focus of the petition is on children under 6, but the joint panel will be asked whether there's evidence that these drugs work in children up to age 12.
[Oh, so it COULD go up to 12-years-old, huh?
Shove your fucking cough "medicine."]
"Ban Complex Drugs for Children, Official Says" by GARDINER HARRIS
SILVER SPRING, Md., Oct. 18 — A federal drug safety official told a panel of experts Thursday that they should consider a ban on multisymptom over-the-counter pediatric cough and cold medicines for children under 6.
The official, Richard Abate of the Food and Drug Administration, said the array of products combining multiple medicines led some parents to overdose their children accidentally. He also advised that measuring devices commonly included with the products be standardized and made easier to understand.
The panel, which the F.D.A. convened, began a two-day meeting Thursday to decide whether over-the-counter pediatric cough and cold medicines should continue to be sold and, if so, for whom. The session comes a week after major manufacturers agreed to withdraw more than a dozen such products labeled for use in infants and babies. If the panel agrees with Mr. Abate’s recommendations, more changes could be in the offing.
Dr. Robert S. Daum, a panel member and pediatrician from the University of Chicago Medical Center, described pediatric cough and cold medicines as “a bewildering mess of complicated ingredients and combinations that do and don’t make sense.” He said he supported requiring single-ingredient products.
[Sort of like a COCKTAIL, huh?
A POISONOUS COCKTAIL for KIDS!!!!]
Dr. Linda Suydam, president of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, told the panel that most reports of serious problems with the drugs came from overdoses or from parents or caregivers who used the medicines to sedate children. The industry would undertake a nationwide program to teach parents how to use the products, she said.
[Yeah, SHADDUP, will you, kid?!?!
Reader, should we be SEDATING or kids?
Not mine!]
But Dr. Charles J. Ganley, director of the office of nonprescription products at the agency, said the industry spent $50 million each year advertising the products. “How do we give fair balance,” Dr. Ganley asked, “when they’re going to be peppered with more ads than the educational campaign?”
[Because it is not about taking care of kids, its about MAKING $$$$!!]
About 800 pediatric cough and cold products are sold in the United States that use one or more of 39 drugs. But every study performed in recent years shows that these medicines have no effect, and a growing number of reports have concluded that they can be dangerous.
[But who cares? DOUGH to be MADE!!!!]
The American College of Chest Physicians recommends that these products not be used in children, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended against their use in children under age 3 unless advised by a doctor.
Some panel members were incredulous that so many people could be so wrong for so long.
“If these medicines are allegedly not effective or materially unsafe, how is the purchase of hundreds of millions of doses by parents to be explained?” asked Dr. George Goldstein, a pharmaceutical industry consultant and nonvoting panelist.
[Easy, sir!
Like everything else in this world, the MSM and the underlying institutions FED US SHIT!
Advertising and propaganda WORK!!!!!
Or else the corporations WOULDN'T WASTE ALL THAT MONEY!!
That's why we POISON our kids with YOUR SHIT, sir!]
