This information is sponsored by Jordan’s Guardian Angels, a non-profit organization working with families with special needs children who are challenged with the need to administer a variety of life-saving medications to their children who face many physical and intellectual disabilities.
Flavored Medicine
Have you ever tried to give a sick child medicine? In my family, it looks something like this: one hand holds the cup of liquid medicine while the other holds the cup of water. Drink the medicine, try not to gag, then quickly drink the water. Sometimes this process goes swimmingly, other times it does not. One of my daughters is especially sensitive to flavorings in medicine and if I buy one that doesn’t agree with her palate, it makes it much more difficult to administer. We’re talking multiple sips and involuntary gagging. Not fun for anyone involved! On the good list are cherry and berry, on the bad list are bubble gum and grape.
Pharmacies and Medicine Flavorings
For years, pharmacists have been able to add flavorings to medicines to help make them easier for children to stomach. There are no adverse effects to these flavorings. Countless parents just like me have relied on them to help ease their children’s pain while sick. Many other parents have to administer medicine regularly because their children have chronic illnesses. Imagine how this would affect them if flavorings were taken away? I think what Mary Poppins said is definitely applicable here, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!”
What is changing?
The California Board of Pharmacy wants to mandate that medicine flavoring for toddlers and children be considered a compounding process that can only be carried out by compounding pharmacies. Compounding pharmacies can mix and combine ingredients for customized medication unlike retail pharmacies that dispense pre-mixed and packaged drugs made by pharmaceutical companies.
How can we stop this?
Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor (D – Inglewood), Jacqui Irwin (D – Thousand Oaks), and Assemblyman Tom Lackey (R – Palmdale), both Democratic and Republican members, have introduced Assembly Bill 782 to continue allowing community pharmacies to flavor medicine for our toddlers and children. Please support this bill: click here to learn more about it, and keep flavorings easily accessible!
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