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The controversey stems really from dosage information. When parents read to give the child "half a teaspoon", they take a kitchen spoon and fill it halfway and give it to the kid. This has been shown to be as much as 3-4 times the dose that they should actually get. Most parents do not measure with a medical spoon for OTC medications and this can result in respiratory distress and/or death in a very small number of cases.
In any case, its been shown in numerous studies that OTC cold meds do not help children in the same way that they help adults. Noses still stuff up, coughs still bark and the littles are not comfortable whether they have the meds or not. So the AMA decided that the risk is not worth whatever small benefit and have therefore removed most cold remedies from shelves.
When my littles are sick, they get motrin and/or tylenol as needed if they are running fevers and I dont give cough/cold/flu meds anymore. I tried a couple of times but I have to agree with the AMA here...they dont do all that much to help the symptoms and they add the further complication of constipation and even further decreasing the desire to take in food or fluid.
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But I usually give less of a dose then recommended.
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