CDC report warns pediatricians about erythromycin
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As reported in this weeks American Medical News, the CDC has found that the widely used antibiotic, erythromycin may be associated with infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis in very young infants.At a community hospital in Tennessee, seven infants receiving erythromycin for exposure to pertussis developed infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis over the next seven months, according to the CDC. Some doctors feel that is a small number compared to the more than 100 children that received the antibiotic at that hospital. Although thousands of kids are receiving treatment with erythromycin, the concern of some doctors is it's increasing "off label" use. This antibiotic may be being increasingly prescribed to more infants in cases it has never been studied for. Rather than being used in life threatening situations, the drug may be developing increasing popularity as a stimulant. Some doctors have said the CDC finding is redundant evidence of the need for drug trials. "We have learned over and over again that the assumption that children are little adults, or infants are little children, is dangerous," said Philip Walson, MD, chief of clinical pharmacology at Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio. "If you want to use a drug in children, it needs to be studied in children." CDC Homepage: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
AMNews: CDC report warns pediatricians about widely used antibiotic
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