The Over-the-Counter Cold Medicine Dilemma

What to Do – And Not Do – About Your Child’s Cold

Three years ago, government health experts were so worried about side effects from children’s over-the-counter cold medications that they recommended a ban by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Manufacturers pulled the medicines from store shelves – but only those for kids under age 2.

This past May, whole aisles in drugstores emptied out following a recall of 43 over-the-counter children’s medicines by pharmaceutical giant McNeil Consumer Healthcare, makers of Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl, due to quality-control problems at their manufacturing plant. And in September, the FDA considered limiting access to cough and cold medicines containing dextromethorphan (DM) because some teens and tweens have been using them to get high.

With cold and flu season under way, what’s a parent to do if a child gets sick?

You Give Me Fever

Watching your child’s temperature climb can be unnerving, but so can learning that the medications you’ve trusted to fight fever – like children’s Tylenol or Motrin – have been pulled from stores because of safety concerns.

“I was very upset when I called about the recall,” says mom Jill Koala-Ines, adding that her family had to dispose of children’s formulas of both Tylenol and Advil. “They were so nice to refund my money and I appreciated the time and concern they took to make sure I disposed of the product properly, but I was disheartened to learn that the product would not be available.”

Fortunately, fever in and of itself isn’t generally a danger to your child’s health. Bringing a fever down just makes a child feel better. “It’s not the [temperature] number that we care about, it’s whether the child is comfortable or not,” says Carlos Lerner, M.D., medical director of the UCLA Children’s Health Center.

Plus, the manufacturer pulled Tylenol and Motrin from the shelves because of a problem at the manufacturing plant, not an ongoing problem with the medications themselves. “These are very safe medications if given in the appropriate doses, and are well known to work,” says Lerner. (He also reminds parents never to give aspirin to children because of its links to more serious illness in kids.)