Many Poor Kids’ Prescriptions Go Unfilled, Study Finds

Thursday, September 27th, 2012

While most parents whose low income qualifies them for health coverage through Medicaid fill prescriptions for antibiotics and other medications for acute illnesses, many fail to fill pediatricians’ orders for vitamin and mineral supplements, a new study has found.  Reuters Health reports:

Antibiotics and other drugs for infections were filled 91 percent of the time, versus 65 percent of prescriptions for vitamins and minerals, for example.

“When your child has an ear infection and is in pain, you have much more of a sense of urgency,” [lead researcher Dr. Rachael] Zweigoron [of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston] said. But if a doctor recommends a vitamin D or iron supplement, she added, parents might not see the immediate need.

That raises the question of whether parents always know why a pediatrician has prescribed a medication or supplement. “Are we, as pediatricians, doing a good enough job of explaining the importance to parents?” Zweigoron said.

The findings, which appear in the journal Pediatrics, are based on 4,833 kids seen over two years at two clinics connected to Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

All of the children were on Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor. So it’s not clear if the findings would be the same for U.S. kids with private insurance.

Image: Child taking medicine, via Shutterstock

Tylenol Recall Does Not Affect Children’s Products

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, has announced a recall of 718,000 bottles of Tylenol, Sudafed, and Benadryl products.  One lot (34,000 bottles) of eight-hour extended release Tylenol caplets was found to have a “musty or moldy odor” that might upset the stomachs of some consumers.

Concerned parents should note that none of the products on the new list–some of which were partially recalled at the wholesale level in January–are marketed as children’s products.  But in May, Johnson & Johnson and other companies announced an overhaul of the way they make concentrated liquid drops of children’s pain and fever medications that contain acetaminophen.  Shortly thereafter, the FDA voted to revamp the way infant medications are labeled and dosed.

Click here for a complete list of products that are part of today’s Tylenol recall.