According to the US government, thousands of toddlers fall ill each year after taking drugs left unprotected by parents, grandparents, and other adults. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta revealed yesterday that more than 53,000 toddlers in the US went to hospital each year from 2001 to 2003 after unintentional drug poisonings. Only in 2002 at least 35 children died from drug accidents.
According to the US government, thousands of toddlers fall ill each year after taking drugs left unprotected by parents, grandparents, and other adults. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta revealed yesterday that more than 53,000 toddlers in the US went to hospital each year from 2001 to 2003 after unintentional drug poisonings. Only in 2002 at least 35 children died from drug accidents.
The researchers claimed that children ages 4 and under found drugs in pillboxes or purses, or sitting out on counters where including parents and grandparents had left them. The findings reveal that access to medications remained hazardous to children even after requirements for childproof packaging cut poisonings almost in half from 1974 through 1992.
‘’Don’t assume that pillboxes or purses are safe places to keep medicine,” said Dan Budnitz, a medical officer in CDC’s Division of Health Care Quality Promotion who helped write the study. ‘’All parents and child caregivers should do their best to store medicine in secure cabinets or places that are out of children’s reach.”
Many patients taking multiple drugs put their pills into pillboxes, sometimes marked for each day of the week, that may lack child protections, Budnitz said. More than 75% of the drug poisonings appeared in children’s own homes. 86% of the children were treated and released from the emergency room. About 5,000 of the children were admitted or sent for specialized care each year. 72% of the children were 1 to 2 years old. According to the statement, parents who want to reach the local poison control center can call 1-800-222-1222 to be automatically put through. The number should be posted by all home telephones, it said.
