Medication Safe - Dr. Ben Tsutaoka

As the holidays are upon us we want to remind you to be acutely aware that many of the calls received by poison control centers during this time are about children getting into medications brought into the home by visiting relatives. This was alluded to in an earlier post and can be loosely termed the “granny syndrome”  (http://medicationsafe.com/2008/07/13/hang-up-your-pocketbook-an-easy-intervention-for-the-granny-syndrome-grandparents-as-a-risk-factor-in-unintentional-pediatric-exposures-to-pharmaceuticals/).

 The following is an excerpt of an article that appeared in the Tucson Citizen and was an interview of one of our colleagues at The Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center. The full story can be found here: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/103597.php.

Holidays are for family, friends and feasting, but can be dangerous for festive revelers under 5.

According to the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center at the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy, pediatric poisoning calls increase almost three-fold on Thanksgiving, Christmas and the days immediately bracketing those holidays.

You can blame some of it on Grandpa.

“We know relatives come to visit over the holidays and grandma and grandpa frequently stay in the kids’ room and their medication is in their suitcase,” said Jude McNally, managing director of the poison center. “I can guarantee we will have several kids admitted to pediatric ICU because of a grandparent’s medication over Thanksgiving. It happens every year.”

We want to encourage you to take a couple of minutes when visitors come to make sure their medications are properly secured. Make sure purses and bags containing medications are out of the reach of young children. This can avert a trip to the Emergency Room or a hospital stay.

Your local poison control center can be accessed by calling 1-800-222-1222.