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Convenience over caution sends about 4 busloads of children to the ER daily for medicine poisonings

With almost one call every minute to poison control centers and enough kids to fill about four school buses a day¹ arriving to emergency rooms due to accidental medicine poisonings, it’s more important than ever for parents to store medicine safely.

A new report by Safe Kids Worldwide, “Safe Medicine Storage: A Look at the Disconnect Between Parent Knowledge and Behavior,” sponsored by Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., reveals that while most parents know what they should do to protect kids from accidental medicine poisoning, that knowledge isn’t always turning into action. In a new nationwide survey of 2,000 parents, the clear majority of parents agree that it’s important to store all medicine out of sight and up high after every use, but less than half of the survey respondents reported doing so.

What Families Can Do to Protect Kids

Store medicine up and away and out of sight and reach every time
Keep medicine in its original child-resistant packaging
Practice safe storage of medicine as soon as your first child is born
Put the Poison Help number – 1-800-222-1222 – into your phone and post it visibly at home
Instead of keeping your medicine handy, use safe reminder tools like cell phone alarms or medication schedules

For more medicine safety tips and to learn more about Safe Kids Worldwide, visit SafeKids.org

See full survey results and tips for parents

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Learn about the disconnect when it comes to safe medicine storage

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Learn how to safely store your medicine to help protect your family

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Reference: 1. Roughly 60,000 children visit emergency rooms every year due to accidental medicine poisonings. Lovegrove M, Weilde NJ, Budnitz DS. Trends in Emergency Department Visits for Unsupervised Pediatric Medication Exposures, 2004-2013. Pediatrics 2015; 136(4):e821—e829; DOI: 10.1542/peds.2015-2092.

Links provided here are for informational purposes only. No endorsement or affiliation is implied.

Survey finds many Americans do not consider key safety factors when choosing OTC pain relievers

A recent survey¹ conducted by the U.S. Pain Foundation, with support from McNeil Consumer Healthcare, found that 97% of Americans feel confident when choosing which type of over-the-counter (OTC) pain medicines to take. However, the survey also revealed that many consumers disregard critical safety factors—such as their age, health conditions, and other medicines they are currently taking—when choosing an OTC pain reliever. In fact, results show that 1 in 5 Americans do not consider any of these important safety factors, and that could make a difference to their health because an OTC pain reliever that was right for someone in the past may not be the right choice for them now. That’s why it’s important to always check the Drug Facts label on OTC pain medicines to make sure that it is still a good fit.

See full survey results about OTC pain relievers

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Hear an expert's advice on OTC pain reliever safety factors

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Find support and resources for people with pain

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Reference: 1. In July 2016, the U.S.Pain Foundation, with support from Mcneil Consumer Healthcare, conducted a survey on American consumers' perceptions and behaviors when it comes to the appropriate selection and use of OTC pain relievers. The survey was conducted from June 24-July 5, 2016 among nearly 1,300 U.S. adults who have used an OTC pain reliever in the last 90 days. The survey included an oversampling of respondents with high blood pressure (n=125) and respondents who have cardiovascular disease (n=125).

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