Drugs: Limits on Children's Aspirin

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The world's most useful drug is aspirin, and it is remarkably safe for most adults. But each year, almost 150 U.S. children die of aspirin poisoning, and more have to be rushed to a hospital to have their stomachs pumped out. For in the young, aspirin dosage is a matter of hair-trigger sensitivity.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has decided that, effective June 1, children's aspirin must be packaged with not more than 36 tablets to a bottle, each tablet of not more than 1¼-grain strength, or one-fourth the potency of the conventional tablet for adults. The FDA's Dr. Basil G. Delta figures that one grain of aspirin per pound of body weight is the danger threshold. So, if a five-year-old weighing the average 45 Ibs. for his age gobbled a whole 45-grain bottle of the future children's aspirin, he would be sick, but would almost certainly recover. For a smaller child the results could be more serious. Some FDA advisers would like to see the number of tablets in a bottle reduced still further.

The FDA wishes that manufacturers would stop selling candy-flavored aspirin, because this makes it more dangerous to children. But the FDA has not yet seen fit to issue a ruling on that.