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American Morning
House Call: Many Medicines Not Tested for Children
Aired February 28, 2003 - 07:49 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to make a "House Call" this morning to look at some of our top health stories. Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is standing by in Atlanta.
Good morning -- Sanjay.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
Well, we've heard a lot about the tragic cough syrup-related deaths now, two boys, 4 and 5 years old. It has a lot of people alarmed, certainly a lot of people concerned as well about how this could have happened. A lot of people do keep the various over-the- counter medications in their homes.
We've talked to a lot of pediatricians, a lot of experts in the field, and everyone agrees that this is a very rare event, although a lot of people do prescribe medications -- give medications to their kids that are actually used for adults.
What they typically say happens is something known as an exaggerated response if someone overdoses, meaning that if it was supposed to make them a little sleepy, it will make them very sleepy; if it was supposed to make them a little bit jittery, it will make them very jittery.
The big problem, of course, is overdosing because of mis- measuring. A lot of medications do come with little cups, as you can see here, appropriate cups to the appropriate bottle that should be used. It's amazing how many people will sort of guess it, and just pour it into another sort of cup and give their kid that sort of medication. That's obviously a big concern.
Now, a lot of these medications that we hear about are not approved for children under a certain age, usually children under 12. Paula, the reason for that typically is because the study data is not there. Most studies are actually done on adults and are not done on kids. So, the way that the medication is typically marketed is saying it's not for use on kids under age 12.
A lot of lessons out of this sort of thing, and a lot of people keep a lot of medications in their medicine cabinet, some of them outdated, some of them no longer of any use. It's a good idea to always go back, clean out your medicine cabinets, make sure that there are kid-specific -- child-specific medications in there.
A lot of these medications do contain lots of different active ingredients -- pain killers, antihistamines, cough suppressants. Make sure you're not mixing the ingredients, talk to your doctor, and, Paula, measure, measure, measure. That's sort of the key thing.
I'm going to come back next hour, change gears dramatically and talk about wrinkles, ways to get rid of wrinkles besides having a face lift. This should be sort of interesting -- Paula.
ZAHN: Oh, we look forward to that.
Before we let you go, Sanjay, it's still not clear to me how much of this cough syrup did these little kids get that died?
GUPTA: Well, you know, what I've heard talking to some of the folks was about -- it was about half a Dixie cup. And they actually went back and tried to measure how much a half a Dixie cup would be, and that would be about seven teaspoons is what they came up with, which, you know, depending on exactly how much was recommended, it could be 7 to 10 times the dose that they should have probably received.
ZAHN: Wow! I mean, as a parent, though, that administers cough syrup, to me, that doesnt sound like a whole lot to kill a kid. I mean, I would have thought that it would have to have been the whole bottle. You're saying just seven teaspoons of that stuff is seven times what you should have and it could kill you.
GUPTA: Well, you know, we don't know all of the details yet. This is what the father is saying he gave each kid. What we do know from the coroner's report, it does appear that the kids did die from a mixture of all of those different medications.
But you know, a lot of these medications have what's known as a high therapeutic index, which means that you could take a lot of it and still have just this exaggerated response. But in rare situations, it sounds like it could actually kill somebody. It usually depresses their breathing to the point where they just don't breathe on their own anymore.
ZAHN: Thanks for the warning. Sanjay Gupta, see you in the next hour.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired February 28, 2003 - 07:49 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to make a "House Call" this morning to look at some of our top health stories. Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is standing by in Atlanta.
Good morning -- Sanjay.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
Well, we've heard a lot about the tragic cough syrup-related deaths now, two boys, 4 and 5 years old. It has a lot of people alarmed, certainly a lot of people concerned as well about how this could have happened. A lot of people do keep the various over-the- counter medications in their homes.
We've talked to a lot of pediatricians, a lot of experts in the field, and everyone agrees that this is a very rare event, although a lot of people do prescribe medications -- give medications to their kids that are actually used for adults.
What they typically say happens is something known as an exaggerated response if someone overdoses, meaning that if it was supposed to make them a little sleepy, it will make them very sleepy; if it was supposed to make them a little bit jittery, it will make them very jittery.
The big problem, of course, is overdosing because of mis- measuring. A lot of medications do come with little cups, as you can see here, appropriate cups to the appropriate bottle that should be used. It's amazing how many people will sort of guess it, and just pour it into another sort of cup and give their kid that sort of medication. That's obviously a big concern.
Now, a lot of these medications that we hear about are not approved for children under a certain age, usually children under 12. Paula, the reason for that typically is because the study data is not there. Most studies are actually done on adults and are not done on kids. So, the way that the medication is typically marketed is saying it's not for use on kids under age 12.
A lot of lessons out of this sort of thing, and a lot of people keep a lot of medications in their medicine cabinet, some of them outdated, some of them no longer of any use. It's a good idea to always go back, clean out your medicine cabinets, make sure that there are kid-specific -- child-specific medications in there.
A lot of these medications do contain lots of different active ingredients -- pain killers, antihistamines, cough suppressants. Make sure you're not mixing the ingredients, talk to your doctor, and, Paula, measure, measure, measure. That's sort of the key thing.
I'm going to come back next hour, change gears dramatically and talk about wrinkles, ways to get rid of wrinkles besides having a face lift. This should be sort of interesting -- Paula.
ZAHN: Oh, we look forward to that.
Before we let you go, Sanjay, it's still not clear to me how much of this cough syrup did these little kids get that died?
GUPTA: Well, you know, what I've heard talking to some of the folks was about -- it was about half a Dixie cup. And they actually went back and tried to measure how much a half a Dixie cup would be, and that would be about seven teaspoons is what they came up with, which, you know, depending on exactly how much was recommended, it could be 7 to 10 times the dose that they should have probably received.
ZAHN: Wow! I mean, as a parent, though, that administers cough syrup, to me, that doesnt sound like a whole lot to kill a kid. I mean, I would have thought that it would have to have been the whole bottle. You're saying just seven teaspoons of that stuff is seven times what you should have and it could kill you.
GUPTA: Well, you know, we don't know all of the details yet. This is what the father is saying he gave each kid. What we do know from the coroner's report, it does appear that the kids did die from a mixture of all of those different medications.
But you know, a lot of these medications have what's known as a high therapeutic index, which means that you could take a lot of it and still have just this exaggerated response. But in rare situations, it sounds like it could actually kill somebody. It usually depresses their breathing to the point where they just don't breathe on their own anymore.
ZAHN: Thanks for the warning. Sanjay Gupta, see you in the next hour.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
