Health Advisor Space

Hong Kong has ordered pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to recall an antibiotic used to treat infections in children which contained a chemical additive twice recommended European safety limits. A government spokesman said Friday that tests revealed the Augmentin antibiotic syrup produced by the British firm’s French factory contained an unsafe level of a plasticiser known as Diisodecyl phthalate (DIDP).

France’s drug regulator had been notified of the syrup recall on Thursday, he added. The drugs maker is the latest company to become embroiled in a scare over plasticisers — chemicals used to make plastic pliable — with Hong Kong banning several Taiwanese drinks in recent weeks after tests showed they were tainted with excessive amounts of another plasticiser. Taiwan has issued a major recall of products, including nearly half a million bottles of sports drinks and fruit juice, over fears they contained the chemical used in plastics.
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One out of six kids with asthma receives an antibiotic they don’t need, according to new study findings. The researchers found that doctors prescribe roughly 1 million unnecessary antibiotics to U.S. kids with asthma each year, potentially encouraging the spread of “superbug” infections that are resistant to even the most powerful drugs.

Another study published in the same issue of the journal Pediatrics shows the U.S. is not the only country to over-prescribe antibiotics in kids with asthma – researchers in Belgium found that kids who receive drugs for asthma were nearly twice as likely as other kids to also get an antibiotic. “You must have a good reason to prescribe both an asthma drug and an antibiotic,” study author Dr. Kris De Boeck of the University Hospital of Leuven told Reuters Health.
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