Industry responds to Senator's call for safer OTC children's liquid medicines

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Healthcare Products Association on Monday responded to Sen. Charles Schumer’s, D-N.Y., recent call for the Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to require flow restrictors on all bottles of children's liquid medicines.

“Manufacturers have voluntarily added flow restrictors to infants’ and children’s liquid acetaminophen products," the association stated. "Flow restrictors are one tool for parents that industry employs to reduce the amount of medicine a child who defeats the child-resistant packaging might ingest. Because medicines are meant to be accessible, flow restrictors aren’t sufficient to prevent accidental, unsupervised medicine ingestions, but safe and appropriate storage is."

CHPA members are involved in a number of long-term efforts targeted at preventing accidental, unsupervised ingestion of medicines by young children, the association added. "The most impactful solution is locking the child-resistant closure and storing all medicines up and away and out of children's reach. This is why we educate parents and caregivers to store medicines up and away and out of sight through a campaign led by CHPA’s Educational Foundation and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s Protect Initiative."