Doctor first stop for sniffling tots

By Megan Genrich

IF YOU have a child under two who has the sniffles, you must now bypass the chemist and go straight to your doctor.

This week the National Drugs and Poisons Scheduling Committee (NDPSC) ruled cough medicines to be more dangerous than beneficial.

It stipulated parents wanting to treat sick toddlers with cough or cold syrup would need to get a prescription for the drugs.

Major brands such as Dimetapp, DEMAZIN, Actifed and Benadryl will be affected by the ruling.

Craig Smith of Raceview Pharmacy said while the changes would not affect them too much, he expected sales of infant cough medicines to decrease.

"It (the changes) will put a lot more pressure on GPs," Mr Smith said.

"There will be a lot of kids with the sniffles going to their GP."

However, Mr Smith said he always encouraged parents of toddlers to take their children to the doctor if they had cold-like symptoms.

He believed the decision was reached because irresponsible parents could overdose their children on cough medicine.

Recently in the UK and the US there have been several cases of rapid heartbeat, convulsions and even death from overdosing on the syrup.

Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne respiratory medicine director Colin Robertson said prescriptions for toddlers was a welcome change, but complete withdrawal would have been preferable.

He stressed extra warnings were needed on adult formulations to discourage parents from adapting the dose for toddlers.

"It's all very well to put the infant medicines on prescription but ones for older kids will still be available over the counter," Dr Robertson said.

"My bet is parents will be tempted to use these on their younger kids too."