Codeine not safe for kids – doctors

Codeine is not safe for children and should not be used to ease pain or relieve coughs, a leading US pediatricians group warns. Codeine has been prescribed for decades for both purposes, despite mounting evidence that it does not always work and sometimes causes serious or potentially fatal side effects, doctors argue in a statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics. “We firmly believe that there is never a reason to use codeine,” said the lead author of the statement, Joseph Tobias of Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, said. Codeine has been linked to life-threatening or fatal respiratory problems in children for more than a decade, Tobias and colleagues note in the statement published in the journal Pediatrics. A recent review by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of potentially dangerous side effects in kids using codeine identified 64 cases of severe slowed breathing rates and 24 deaths related to the drug, including 21 deaths in children under 12. Respiratory issues often developed after children had surgery to remove their adenoids and tonsils, a procedure done to address obstructed breathing during sleep or treat acute or...