If drugs are harmful enough
to stop when you're pregnant, what makes them less
harmful when you're not?
How to cure the common cold:
"Without medicine it takes 7 days, with medicine
it takes a week."
You've heard this classic punch-line about fighting
the common cold, and there is truth in this statement.
When a child in America starts sniffling or sneezing,
the first line of defense that most parents use is…
a jog to their medicine cabinet.
In 2004, over 3 million prescriptions for five drugs
were prescribed to children without adequate studies
being conducted on their safety and effectiveness.
(Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health
Research
Group)
The Food and Drug Administration was recently quoted
as saying that the side effects of many cold medicines
are not usually serious, but that severe and deadly
side-effects are not only possible, but are becoming
more common everyday.
Prescription drug errors double a person's risk of
dying in the hospital and cost an estimated $2 billion
a year.
(Tim Friend, USA Today)
During a five year period in the late 1980's, more
than 650,000 children had been reported as severely
"ill" as
a direct result of taking over the counter drugs,
so says the Center for Poison Control.
The most common drug given to sick children - antibiotics
- is actually a suppressor to the immune system!
The Journal of American Medical Association found
that Amoxicillin is not effective ... and ... concluded
that
children who took the drug for chronic ear infections
were 2-6 times more likely to have a recurrence of
fluid
buildup.