A federal study has revealed that more children are at risk of accidentally swallowing prescription anti-addiction drugs that are being used to fight painkiller and heroine abuse. Results of the study showed that the drug called buprenorphine has been implicated in a number of emergency hospitalizations involving children aged six years old and below. After Data analysis, authorities found that out of 100,000 patients with buprenorphine prescriptions, 200 children were hospitalized for accidentally taking it. This rate is over four times higher than the statistic for the next implicated drug. In total, nearly 800 children are being hospitalized because of buprenorphine ingestion.
Results of the study was published in the journal Pediatrics and contained data that was analyzed between the years 2007 and 2011 and contained important information and notes about why it is imperative to keep medicines safely stored and out of children's reach. These numbers are exclusive of incidences of death related to buprenorphine, but there are other medical reports that have documented deaths resulting from these incidents. Senior author, Dr. Daniel Budnitz, is also the Director of Medication Safety at the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that alterations that were made on the drug packaging could have a significant impact in reducing the risk of accidental ingestion of this type of drug. He is hopeful that the statistics have changed since they conducted their study, although there is no recent national data available on the subject.
Buprenorphine is an opioid that is most commonly marketed I was a compound mixture of buprenorphine and nalaoxone, and sold under the brand-name Suboxone. It is 50 times more potent than morphine and is used as an adjunct in anti-addiction therapy to curb drug cravings and manage withdrawal symptoms. When children accidentally ingest this compound it causes potentially life-threatening conditions that could involve sedation, vomiting, and dangerously low respiratory rate.