On Aug. 21, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that an upcoming meeting of the pediatric advisory committee will focus on the use of prescription opioid products containing hydrocodone or codeine for the treatment of cough in pediatric patients, including current treatment practices and benefit-risk consideration. At a roundtable earlier this year, the FDA heard from several professional groups on this issue.

Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. – FDA is carefully evaluating prescription opioid medications approved to treat cough in children

There’s perhaps no more important mandate that we have at the FDA than safeguarding the health and safety of children. For that reason, I believe it’s important that parents and health care providers have the best information available to inform the decisions they make about a child’s health. There are few more common decisions that parents and providers are asked to make than the question of how to appropriately treat a child’s cough and cold symptoms. Sometimes symptoms can be severe enough that prescription medication is needed, but some of these medications pose their own risks – especially for younger children – because they may contain opioids. Other times medication might not be necessary at all.

read the rest of the press release at fda.gov