Drug link with cot deaths investigated

Press, 19 April 1989, Page 11

Drug link with cot deaths investigated

PA Wellington Neither Dr Ralph Riseley from the Health Department’s medicines and benefits section, nor a cot death researcher, Mr lan Mitchell, from the Auckland Medical School, have heard of the claimed links between Phenergan and cot deaths, though they are now looking into them. Dr Riseley said the drug was a sedative so it was quite possible it could contribute to sudden infant death syndrome (5.1.D.5.). “It makes you quite

dopey, and it may increase the risk in a child susceptible to those sorts of problems anyway,” he said. "Cot death is a multifactorial thing. If it had only one cause we would have found it long ago. But it is possible this drug is connected." A report from the Washington-based Public Citizen Health Research Group said researchers in Belgium, where the drug is available over the counter, have associated it with S.I.D.S. and in subsequent research

had found it caused obstruction of the airways during sleep in infants. The group has asked the United States Government to reverse a decision allowing nonprescription sales of the drug, which is made by Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories in Philadelphia. Phenergan has been available in the United States for the last 35 years with a doctor’s prescription. It has been available in New Zealand since the 1950 s and is now available without a prescription.