CHICAGO - Anxious parents are preparing to call doctors this morning and scouring the Internet for information after an enormous recall of over-the-counter medications for infants and children that was announced abruptly on Friday evening. The recall affects all unexpired lots of liquid Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl formulated for youngsters - more than 43 products overall. Parents across the country rely on the medications to ease their children's aches and pains, fevers and allergy-associated runny noses and sneezing. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised families to stop using the products, noting some might contain "tiny particles" while others have too much active ingredients or inactive ingredients that don't meet specifications. McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the manufacturer, and federal officials said the prospect of serious medical problems was "remote." McNeil's hot line 1-888-222-6036 featured a spoken rendition of the company's press release yesterday when a reporter called. That release, including a list of all affected products and their lot numbers, is available at www.mcneilproductrecall.com. McNeil is a unit of Johnson & Johnson. Families should feel comfortable using generic versions of the drugs, said Dr. Saul Weiner, an associate professor of pediatrics and internal medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center. Most retailers carry them. The generic version of Tylenol is known as acetaminophen. The generic for Motrin is ibuprofen; for Zyrtec, it's cetirizine; and for Benadryl it's diphenhydramine. It's wiser to switch to a generic than to stop a medication for your child altogether: Don't do that without first checking with your doctor's office, Weiner said. Also, don't substitute herbal remedies or baby aspirin for Tylenol or Motrin, said Rhonda Yates, director of the pharmacy at Advocate Christ Medical Center and Hope Children's Hospital in Chicago. Herbal supplements aren't tested or approved by the FDA. [But we should feel very comfortable giving children drugs. All of these drugs are over-the-counter therefore they really are not needed because no doctor prescribed them!- bfg] Aspirin carries a risk of a rare but serious disorder known as Reye's Syndrome when used by children and teens, she said. Under no circumstances should parents give kids medications meant for adults. Splitting a pill will give a child too high a dose and that could cause serious complications, said Jenny Elhadary, pharmacy administrator for Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. If you have given a child one of the medications being recalled, watch out for nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, a rash or "any symptoms that seem out of the ordinary," Elhadary said. Those side effects would usually appear within 24 hours. Call a doctor immediately if the symptoms appear.
From wire reports WASHINGTON— The division of Johnson & Johnson that has recalled 43 types of over-the-counter medicine for infants and children received complaints from the public about the products a year ago but failed to properly follow up, according to federal investigators. In addition, the company knew that raw materials used to make children's and infants' Tylenol were contaminated with "organisms" but allowed those contaminants into the finished product, investigators found. Food and Drug Administration investigators flagged 20 problems in the past two weeks at the Fort Washington, Pa., plant owned by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, documents released yesterday showed. McNeil said yesterday that it has suspended operations at the plant.