STUDY FINDS 'MALICIOUS' DRUGGING OF KIDS

Giving Unneeded Pharmaceuticals To Children Is An Under-recognized
Form Of Abuse, Author Says

"Malicious" use of pharmaceuticals on children is an under-recognized
form of child abuse, a study released Thursday says.

Researchers analyzed information from the U.S. National Poison Centre
Data System from the past decade and found a small but steady number
of young children, median age two, who were exposed to at least one
sedating agent, including street drugs, antipsychotics, cough
medicines and ethanol.

"It's an aspect of child abuse that is not often considered," said Dr.
Shan Yin, a pediatrician at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital and
author of the study published in the Journal of Pediatrics.

"I think this is going on, probably throughout the country, and we're
not paying attention to it."

The study looked at cases from 2000 to 2008, involving pharmaceutical
exposure to children under seven years old, for which the reason was
coded as "malicious" by poison centre standards.

A total of 1,439 cases met the criteria, averaging 160 per
year.

There were 172 cases that resulted in "moderate or major" outcomes,
such as coma, and 18 of them ended in death.

The most commonly reported drug category was analgesics, which
includes acetaminophen, ibuprofen and a combination of acetaminophen
with other drugs.

The second most common class of drugs was stimulants and street drugs,
which included marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Sedatives, hypnotics and antipsychotics, cold and cough medicines,
ethanol, topical drugs such as antiseptics, laxatives and
antihistamines were other common categories of drugs reported to the
centre, the study found.

A few cases involved antidepressants and cardiovascular
drugs.

"If even a fraction of the nearly 150,000 annual cases of physical
abuse also involve an element of nontherapeutic pharmaceutical
administration, then we are missing thousands of cases each year," the
study says.

"This study provides a starting point for estimating the true
incidence of this potentially under-recognized problem."

Although there is no Canadian research or statistics detailing
pharmaceuticals in children, there is similar concern among physicians
in Canada.

"Typically, when the public thinks about child abuse, they think about
physical abuse of a child, neglect, cruelty -- emotional and other.
Indeed, people don't routinely think about giving a child a
medication. But unfortunately, this is not rare," said Dr. Gideon
Koren, a pediatrician at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

Koren, who sees a couple of cases of abuse each month, said not all
cases of pharmaceuticals can be categorized as "malicious."

Parents sometimes use sedatives to calm their children down, while
others involve ignorance or child mischief, he said.

But he said in other cases, parents deliberately drug their kids to
serve other forms of abuse, such as sexual abuse, he said.

Another problem is that of resources for pediatricians.

Toronto's Sick Kids, one of the world's foremost pediatric hospitals,
has its own department for toxicology and sophisticated equipment, but
most smaller hospitals do not have the means to test for
pharmaceuticals, which can be difficult to diagnose, said Koren.

Yin said he hopes the study and further research raises awareness
among doctors to consider the issue of pharmaceutical abuse.