Unsecured Opioid Prescriptions and Pet Meds Cause Child Poisonings
/By Crystal Lindell
A new study highlights the need for patients and pet owners to make sure their opioid medication is kept secure and away from children.
The study, published in The Journal of Pediatrics, looked at how young children are often exposed to prescription opioids. The authors analyzed 230 pediatric opioid poisoning cases that were reported to the New Jersey poison control center over a 5-year period. Most of the exposures were unintentional and involved children under the age of two.
Researchers found that the opioids consumed by children most often belonged to parents (40%), grandparents (17.4%), friends and other family members (7.8%) or were intended for pets (4.3%).
Five incidents involved opioid medication that had been mixed with a food or treat intended for a pet. But when the pet didn’t take it or spit it out, a child found it.
Dr. Diane Calello, a pediatric emergency physician and one of the study's authors, said it's common for a pet owner to mix medication with food to make it more palatable to their pet.
“Anybody who has ever tried to give medications to a dog or a cat that doesn’t want to take it knows you put it in peanut butter or cheese,” Calello told WHYY News. “If you give a pet that medication and they walk six, eight feet away and then they spit it out on the ground, there’s that little morsel that happens to contain medicine in it and children can obtain that and put that in their mouth as well.”
As for the medications belonging to grandparents, Calello and her colleagues noted that older patients may not get much counseling on the proper storage of prescription drugs because healthcare providers assume they have no children living with them.
Most of the child poisonings involved pharmaceutical opioids (86%), occurred in the child’s home (91%), and resulted in the child being admitted to a healthcare facility (84%).
Nearly 9% of the cases involved medication wrappers that were already opened, divided pills and buccal films that were improperly stored, and exposure to opioid residue left on tissue paper, cotton balls, cellophane and analgesic patches.
In some cases children came across used fentanyl patches, illicit drug paraphernalia, liquid opioids or discarded medication left in trash cans and handbags, or left on countertops.
“People think when they’re handling intact medication in a prescription package, ‘That is something I need to keep safe,’” Calello said. “But you don’t have that same checkpoint in our brain for things that we throw away.”
The researchers recommend that the overdose reversing drug naloxone be prescribed to everyone getting opioids, whether they’re intended for a human or pet. Naloxone can be safely given to children after exposure.
Requiring naloxone prescriptions for patients getting opioids is controversial among pain patients, especially if they have to pay for it themselves out of pocket.
However, studies like this show why anyone who takes opioids should consider carrying naloxone with them, especially if they are visiting a home with children.
