Accident & Injury Law in Texas

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Anxious parents are scouring the Internet for information after an enormous recall of over-the-counter medications for infants and children that was announced last week.

The recall affects all unexpired lots of liquid Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl formulated for youngsters more than 43 products overall.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised families to stop using the products, noting some may contain “tiny particles” while others have too much of the active ingredients or inactive ingredients that don’t meet specifications. McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the manufacturer, and federal officials said the prospect of serious medical problems was “remote.”

For its part, McNeil did little to calm parents’ fears with a hot line (888-222-6036) that featured a verbal rendition of the company’s news release. That release, including a list of all affected products and their lot numbers, is available at www.mcneilproductrecall.com.

McNeil is a unit of Johnson and Johnson.

Families should feel comfortable using generic versions of the drugs, said Dr. Saul Weiner, an associate professor of pediatrics and internal medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center.

If you have given a child one of the medications being recalled, watch out for nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, a rash or “any symptoms that seem out of the ordinary,” said. Jenny Elhadary, pharmacy administrator for Children’s Memorial Hospital.

Call a doctor immediately if the symptoms appear.

Meanwhile, a conressional committee has aunched an investigation into the problems, with lawmakers pledging to crutinize the performance of both the drug maker and federal regulators.

Reps. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the leaders of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a joint statement that they are “deeply concerned” about the recall, which affects an estimated 70 percent of the market for over-the-counter pediatric liquid medicines.

The investigation comes a day after the Food and Drug Administration released documents by federal inspectors who found widespread quality control problems at the Pennsylvania facility where the recalled medicines were manufactured.

Federal investigators found that raw materials had “known contamination” with unspecified bacteria and “were ap proved for use to manufacture several finished lots of Children’s and Infant’s Tylenol drug products.” FDA officials said they couldn’t identify the bacteria.

Samples of finished products tested negative for bacteria, however, and the risk to consumers was remote, agency officials said.

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