More than half of parents continue to give over-the-counter cough and cold medicines to children under the age of 2, despite warnings from the Food and Drug Administration that the medications are not effective and that they have poisoned or killed hundreds of children, according to a new poll released Tuesday by C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich. Surprisingly, more than half of physicians also told parents that the drugs were effective, despite evidence to the contrary, the poll found.
The FDA warned about the medications in 2008, which prompted a voluntary recall of many of the products. "We wanted to see how well parents and physicians were adopting those recommendations," said Dr. Matthew Davis, director of the hospital's National Poll on Children's Health and an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School. "Unfortunately, this latest poll indicates that the FDA warnings have gone unheeded by the majority of parents and, surprisingly, many physicians."
