The Food and Drug Administration is attempting to warn parents about the danger presented to unwitting children by nasal sprays and over the counter eye drops.
These products can easily be swallowed by children if they are left out where a kid could easily get ahold of them. The threat comes in the form of the drugs typically contained within such items. Products like Mucinex, Visine, and more contain such things as naphazoline, oxymetazoline, and tetrahydrozoline, and if a child swallows just one teaspoon of a drop or spray, he or she could experience an adverse health event.
In fact, between 1985 and this year, there have been a confirmed 96 instances where a kid up to the age of five accidentally swallowed an item containing one of the aforementioned drugs. Thankfully, none of those situations reportedly led to a fatality, but 53 of the incidents required hospitalization to treat things like vomiting, a rapid heart beat, and even comas.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has been in the process of trying to pass a rule that would require such items to be contained within a child-proof package, but there have not been any concrete results yet. That’s why the FDA is asking parents to keep the items away from kids at all times. If the child still gets ahold of the medicine, a doctor should be sought and the Poison Control Center should be called.