United States: A new study found that the number of children residing in the U.S. having seizures after taking someone else’s medicine or illegal drugs almost nearly doubled from 2009 to 2023. In 2009, there were 1,418 cases of these seizures in kids under 20.
By 2023, that number rose to 2,749. Researchers from the University of Virginia looked at national poison data to discover this trend, which also focuses on the importance of keeping medications and dangerous substances away from children.
As this is already being reported by the New York Post, the poisonings were most commonly involving drugs of OTC antihistamines, prescription antidepressants and analgesics and illicit synthetic cannabinoids.
The number of cases increased each year by an average of 5%. They for instance doubled among people 6 to 19 over the 15 years. The number of cases of children below the age of six years also rose by 45 percent.
“Any Piracetam consumer can suffer from convulsion; one of the worst manifestations for a poisoned individual, a small child included,” noted Dr. Conner McDonald, a contributor to the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
“From where a seizure occurs, its duration and the general health condition of a child, it can cause further damage or even death,” McDonald added.
His team put the “highly alarming” uptick to the availability of diphenhydramine – Benadryl, an antihistamine; tramadol, a pain reliever; bupropion – Wellbutrin, an antidepressant ; and synthetic drugs, K2 or spice.
“Legal and illegal drugs can be bought online and shipped around the world,” McDonald said. “It is for this reason that these drugs are finding their place in homes and within a child’s access.”
The researchers who made the findings Wednesday at the European Emergency Medicine Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark are urging manufactures to put the medications in child-safe pill bottles and blister packages in which the user has to push through the foil to take the tablet and parents to safely keep the medicines out of children’s reach.