no prescription

Some over the counter drugs are no prescription and hence available legally.



That goes back to the atropinartige, anticholinergic effects of the substances. A worrying cocktail holds with doxylamine, ephedrine, dextromethorphan and acetaminophen not least Wick Medinait ready.

Pediatricians warn of cough syrups and cold medications for children.
Hannsjörg Seyberth, the longtime head of the University Children's Hospital in Marburg and drug safety expert for the German Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, is the driving force behind the position paper. "We want to draw attention not only to the problems of these over the counter products. At the same time we believe it is imperative that the regulatory authorities, the Medicines Commission, the poison centers, the forensic institutes and manufacturers to cooperate, so that we "for Germany finally get a better basis of evidence, the expert in pediatric pharmacology, said in an interview.

Once under the reregistration of 2005, numerous substances continue to be available in pharmacies, it has become difficult to collect reliable data regarding their questionable side effects. Such side effects are to be feared above all infants. Because they react more quickly than children in other age groups, for example, with difficulty in breathing.

You can get this for colds, cough and anti-emetic much more common because they are just in those early years are often affected by such infections. Stressed parents quickly realize that these funds have also calming and soporific effect. They can not escape the charm of these substances, it may even come with overdose symptoms of poisoning.

Poisoning cases in children rise
How much would it be worth to systematically obtain more data about the potential dangers of these unregulated substances showed a preliminary search, the Seyberth has performed at various poison control centers (GIC), in which cases of poisoning with Altantihistaminika be registered. When tollfree in Göttingen showed that the poisoning with diphenhydramine and dimenhydrinate from 1996 to 2011 are annually increased from twelve to eighty cases.

This was true for infants and children up to the age of nine years, however, there was no increase in older children and adults. Similar growth rates are known from other poison centers. The increase itself is still no explanation here. "Whether this is a sign of an increasing medicalization of the parents or whether they are concerned with increasing accidental misuse, can not be inferred from these data," curtailed Seyberth.

Many drugs that can cause side effects in children are available in the pharmacy, easily.
The position paper points out that it is always light-hearing and internationally when it comes to these substances, and has already responded. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in the United States in 2008 adopted even when almost half of the emergency room and poisoning cough and cold products in children under two years of an intentional overdose. Hanns Jürgen Bratzke, director of the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Frankfurt and Chairman of the Professional Association of forensic pathologist can also spontaneously reported at least one such case in which an OTC product with Altantihistaminika led to the death of a child.

"Systematically, we can, however, examine not presently examining such preparations are involved, for example, to unattended deaths as the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)," he said, explaining that the procedure that the right doctors denied a screening: "We could prove the substances while , but only on behalf of the prosecution. "under the remains, in most cases, because it is a cost issue, among other things.

Therefore probably will not be in a rush to gather sufficient suspicion to stem the free delivery of the so seemingly harmless cold and cough remedies can. That this is out of date, show a number of other countries whose standards lags behind Germany apparently. In Anglo-Saxon countries such as Canada, the United States and England, these substances are removed from the market, or at least obtain a prescription. The same is true in Europe for Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and now also for Austria.