Cold Medicine Isn't For Kids

The FDA is now saying kids under 6 should not take any cold medicines.

"The data that we have now is they don't seem to work," said Sean Hennessy, a University of Pennsylvania epidemiologist, one of the FDA experts gathered to examine the medicines sold to treat common cold symptoms. The recommendation applies to medicines containing one or more of the following ingredients: decongestants, expectorants, antihistamines and antitussives.
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Some of the drugs — which include Wyeth's Dimetapp and Robitussin, Johnson & Johnson's Pediacare and Novartis AG's Triaminic products — have never been tested in children, something flagged as long ago as 1972 by a previous FDA panel.

An FDA review found just 11 studies of children published over the last half-century. Those studies did not establish that the medicines worked in those cases, according to the agency.

For the most part, the results from tests in adults have been extrapolated to determine whether the medicines work in children. But even that evidence is "modest at best," said panel chairwoman Dr. Mary Tinetti of Yale University School of Medicine. Indeed, all but one of the 22 panelists then voted to say that extrapolation is unacceptable.

The speed at which people run to the cabinet for drugs for the slightest little thing is amazing to me. Whatever happened to staying home and getting some rest when you didn't feel good? We seem to have developed the notion that we should never have to face bad things so if we don't feel good, get doped up even if the evidence that the medicine does anything is shaky. Until a cure for the common cold is developed, I think people need to learn to live with the symptoms.