Full list of medicines

Cold and cough medicines aimed at young children are being removed from shelves today amid fears of dangerous accidental overdoses.

Six products that are specifically marketed at those under two years old are being removed from open sale following instructions from the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

The move follows a review of over-the-counter cough and cold treatments for children by the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM).

The products being withdrawn include two Boots own-brand medicines and one from Asda.

Dozens more remedies authorised for children under two but not marketed at them, and others which are authorised for children between two and six, will be taken off open shelves temporarily, until they can be repackaged to include advice that they should not be given to children younger than 24 months.

In the meantime, all these medicines will be kept behind pharmacy counters. Anybody seeking to buy them will be questioned about the age of the child who is ill.

If the child is older than two, the product can be sold and an advice leaflet will be provided.

Major brands affected by the move include Benylin, Calpol and Tixylix.

Products aimed at children aged two and over will return to shelves once they have been repackaged, which is expected to happen by October.

Sara Coakley, a spokeswoman for the MRHA, said letters were sent to healthcare professionals yesterday afternoon explaining the move.

“It’s a precautionary measure. They are not dangerous,” she said.

“If they had been dangerous, we’d have had them off the market in seconds. Nobody should panic. There’s nothing wrong with these medicines it was the way that they had been given.”

Ms Coakley said the remedies could be dangerous if people gave their child more than the recommended dose or gave them more than one product containing the same active ingredient at the same time.

“Children under two are particularly susceptible because of their small size so can be at risk of overdose,” she added.

“We are saying don’t give it to under-twos.”

For older children, she added: “If you are giving them the right dose, don’t worry. Make sure you follow the correct dosage.”

She said that there had been a rise in “adverse reactions” to the products, but that this had been more widely seen in the USA.

The American Food and Drug Administration recently announced that over-the-counter cough and cold preparations should no longer be used in children under two years, and improved packaging has been introduced.

British parents of babies and toddlers were advised to use temperature-lowering drugs such as ibuprofen or paracetamol along with vapour rubs and simple cough remedies such as glycerol, honey or lemon.

Professor Rosalind Smyth, Chair of the CHM Paediatric Medicines Expert Advisory Group said: “Coughs and colds are generally self limiting conditions which will get better themselves usually within a few days. The management of symptoms in the under twos is best achieved with treatment to control fever (ibuprofen or paracetamol), together with simple cough mixtures.”

The products being removed from open sale are Asda Children’s Chesty Cough Syrup, Boots Chesty Cough Syrup One Year Plus, Boots Sore Throat and Cough Linctus One Year Plus, Buttercup Infant Cough Syrup, CalCough Chesty and Bell’s Children’s Chesty Cough. All can still be sold for older children under the supervision of a pharmacist.

A spokesman for Boots said this morning that it had informed all of its pharmacists about the new MHRA guidelines: “We recommend that when treating children under six years of age for cough and cold symptoms, customers should seek advice from a pharmacist or other healthcare professional,” he added.

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