Aust'n parents over-use "ineffective" medicines on children: report

Australian parents are misusing "largely ineffective" over-the-counter cough and cold medicines, a report has found.

The Child Health Poll, released by Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital on Friday, found that Australian parents were overusing and misusing the cough and cold medicines.

Researchers found from 2,157 parents polled that a third of children under six were given over-the-counter cough and cold medicines by their parents, despite no scientific evidence the drugs benefited children in that age group.

Michael Gannon, head of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), said that it was "proving difficult" to educate Australians that the medicines were mostly useless.

"They are largely ineffective products, but it still remains the case that so many Australians, including parents of small children, will reach for delicious tasting cough mixture," Gannon told the Guardian on Friday.

"That's why health education and health literacy for parents is so important."

The Child Health Poll said that three-quarters of parents who treated children under six with the medicines said they had done so on the advice of a pharmacist, and two thirds had done so under the advice of a doctor.

"The truth is we place general practitioners (GPs) in a difficult position and constantly criticize the advice they give people," Gannon said.

"The over-prescription of antibiotics is a much greater problem due to it leading to antibiotic resistance. A lot of parents have a mentality when they bring the child in to their GP that they want something done and to walk away with a prescription in their hand. I suspect many GPs would regard recommending over-the-counter cough mixture as a lesser evil than prescribing antibiotics."

The report said that parents in Australia spend an estimated 50 million U.S. dollars on cold and cough medicines for children aged under 15. Endit