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NRF warns that children may mistake medicine for candy

Cleburne Times-Review - 10/27/2018

Oct. 26--Children of all ages will soon walk door to door asking for candy in celebration of Halloween. Officials with the National Retail Federation want to remind parents to hide away their medications in case their children mistake them for pieces of candy they can devour.

Local pharmacists encourage parents to either keep their medications out of reach or lock them up so children can't get a hold of them.

According to the NRF, families are projected to spend $2.6 billion on candy this year. To avoid "candy confusion" -- especially with young ones preparing for trick-or-treat next week -- the Up and Away campaign, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is reminding parents and caregivers of young children to be extra vigilant about safe medication storage.

Every year, about 60,000 young children in the U.S. end up in the emergency room after accidently getting into medicines left within their reach, according to its website.

"With Halloween just around the corner, it can be easy for young ones to mistake medicine left out on the counter as candy," said Dan Budnitz, director of the Medication Safety Program at the CDC and manager of its PROTECT initiative. "With this in mind, it's important that parents and guardians remember to safely store and keep medicines up and away, and out of sight and reach, from children."

The Up and Away campaign aims to prevent accidental, unsupervised ingestion of medicine by educating parents and caregivers about safe medicine storage.

Monte Barron, a pharmacist at Cleburne Drug, said children often mistake medications for candy because of their color and the way they taste.

"A lot of packaging that medications come in and packages from candy, you can't tell the difference," Barron said. "They may see parents take it out of the package and put it in their mouth and think it's OK for them to eat it."

Parents should either put their medications up in a high cabinet where they can't be reached by children or lock them away, he said.

It can be scary when parents catch their children eating medications, he said. They should call 911 if they don't know what they ate or how much of it they consumed.

For a safe Halloween season, the NRF is encouraging parents to follow these tips:

--As tempting as this can be, never refer to medicine as candy when giving your child.

--Make sure all medicines are stored safely, up and away and out of sight. This includes grandma and grandpa's house too. Nearly one in five grandparents store their over-the-counter medicines in easy to access places. Remind grandparents and babysitters to take the same precautions.

--Be prepared by saving the Poison Help number in your phone -- 800-222-1222 -- or text "POISON" to 797979 to save the information automatically.

For information and tips on safe medicine storage, visit upandaway.org.

Information in this report came from StatePoint Media.

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(c)2018 the Cleburne Times-Review (Cleburne, Texas)

Visit the Cleburne Times-Review (Cleburne, Texas) at www.cleburnetimesreview.com

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