Most Newborns Given Drugs Not Specifically Tested for Pediatric Use, Research Shows (4)

Published: 09.02.2011 09:25

Photo: EMF/Scanpix

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One third of Estonian children are being prescribed medically unindicated drugs, and for newborns the figure reaches 90 percent, according to Jana Lass, a doctoral student at the University of Tartu Institute of Microbiology.

Medical treatment of children is much more complicated than that of adults, and children make up a large proportion of takers of prescription medicines, Lass said at the Kliinik 2011 medical conference in Tartu on February 7. 

"Nine to 33 percent of the medications given to children are not medically indicated for use on children. Recent studies have shown that over 50 percent of pharmaceuticals used on children have not been researched on them. The situation is crucial with newborns: 80 to 90 percent of the prescribed drugs have not been tested on the target group and are not medically indicated," Lass said.

Since a large number of pharmaceuticals don't carry information about how they should be used to treat children or babies, pediatrists and general practitioners use different sources at hand to find out what dosage to use, she said.

In case of being unaware of the correct drug dosages for children, physicians often simply use smaller portions of the adult dosage. Due to this uncertainty, the risk of medical errors increases. Also, some additional substances present in medicines may be harmful to children.

"It came as a surprise to us that two pharmaceuticals that have the same active substance, yet are made by different manufacturers, have differing information on how to use the medication in children," Lass said.

Lass' findings were based on 2007 data from the Estonian Health Insurance Fund.

According to Lass, state regulations in this field have appeared only in recent years. At the moment research is being carried out in order see whether the situation has improved in any way.

The European Medicines Agency has compiled a list of pharmaceuticals that desperately need additional clinical testing before being prescribed to children.

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Comments (4)

  • avatar

    auslane

    09.02.2011 09:39

    This information is either poorly researched or poorly summarized. Firstly, '9%-33%' is a huge range, When are the figures 9%? When 33%? More importantly, saying '9%-33% of medications given to children are not medically indicated for use on children' does NOT mean '1/3rd of Estonian children are being prescribed medically unindicated drugs'. It could be that all of the '9-33%' have been given to a single child, meaning only one child in all of Estonia is *potentially* being given 'unsafe' .... and so, finally, 'medically unindicated' does not directly mean 'unsafe' either.

  • Father

    09.02.2011 10:28

    Auslane, those are good points, but I would tend to believe it. I was prescribed meds by my doctor once. He told me to take them 3 times a day, and nothing else. Luckily I had the sense to look it up on the web, where it specifically said, "Do not drive for at least 12 hours after taking this medication." I hear from credible sources that standards are lowered for med school graduation in Estonia. If they weren't, the shortage of doctors would be even more severe.

  • James

    09.02.2011 11:40

    I guess it is very hard to do clinical trials on newborns as nobody is willing for their child to participate. I read a similar thing about childbirth. Not much more is known about it (e.g. whether it is likely to go well or badly) than 30 years ago. It is hard to find funding to carry out research and even harder to find any patients willing to participate.

  • avatar

    auslane

    09.02.2011 12:18

    @Father - I'm not sure how your anecdotal experience as an adult or beliefs are relevant here. The point I was making is that the headline "Most Newborns Given Unsafe Drugs" is unsubstantiated by the points mentioned in the article, and (possibly) even by the data itself. This appears to be poor summarising / editing on ERR's behalf, and the only reason I can think of why this has been done is to have an 'exciting' headline.