Parents taking more drugs linked to more child poisoning

As heart and diabetes prescriptions for U.S. adults go up along with the number of older parents, so do child drug poisonings, researchers say. Dr. Lindsey C. Burghardt, John S. Brownstein, Dr. Florence T. Bourgeois of Boston Children's Hospital and the Department of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and colleagues measured monthly pediatric exposures and poisonings using the National Poison Data System and prescriptions written for adults using the National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys from 2000-09. The researchers analyzed the association between adult prescriptions for oral hypoglycemics, anti-hyperlipidemics, beta-blockers and opioids, and exposures and poisonings among children up to age 19 using multiple time-series analysis. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found adult medication prescriptions were statistically significantly associated with exposures and poisonings in children of all ages, with the strongest association observed for opioids -- painkillers such as codeine. Across medications, the greatest risk was among children ages age 5 and younger, followed by 13- to 19-year-olds. Sixty percent of the youth who were treated in a hospital emergency room visit was due to diabetes drugs, while a similar percentage got hospital treatment due to heart medication.