Washington, DC- Poison centers reported thousands of very young children accidentally ingesting opiates prescribed for adults in their household; most of the poisonings involved hydrocodone or oxycodone, sometimes prescribed as Lortab, Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin and many others. The study is published online today in the Annals of Emergency Medicine ("The Underrecognized Toll of Prescription Opioid Abuse on Young Children").

"Young children are naturally curious and most of our reports indicated that the accidental overdosing occurred when children found lost or discarded tablets, an open container or partially filled cups of medication," said lead study author J. Elise Bailey of the RADARS® (Researched Abuse, Diversion and Addiction-Related Surveillance) System, an operation of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center - Denver Health and Hospital Authority in Denver, CO. "The effectiveness of child-proof closures is lost when an adult has left even a small amount of the medication where kids can get it. While medications are often labeled 'keep away from children,'no products to our knowledge note extreme danger, such as warning that one pill can kill a young child."

Researchers studied participating RADARS System poison center records between January 2003 and June 2006, and found 9,179 children were exposed to a prescription opiate, all of them under the age of six. These exposures resulted in eight deaths, 43 life-threatening or disabling events and 214 prolonged but not life-threatening effects. All the deaths occurred in children under the age of three after exposure to methadone, oxycodone and hydrocodone. Hydrocodone was responsible for 6,003 poisonings and oxycodone was responsible for 2,036 poisonings.

"Prescription opiates provide benefit to adult patients in pain, but our study demonstrates that young children are endangered by them," said Ms. Bailey. "Only a portion of U.S. poison centers participated in our study, so the number of accidental ingestions is probably much higher than our numbers show. Since one tablet of an opioid may be lethal to a young child, we clearly need much better interventions to prevent further damage and deaths from these powerful drugs."

Dr. Linda Lawrence, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, stresses vigilance at home, including with visitors.