Childrens OTC Medication Dosing

Dosing instructions for OTC medicines for children confusing, hard to follow.
The Los Angeles Times (12/1, Roan) reports that, according to a study published online Nov. 30 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "many over-the-counter, liquid medications meant for children contain dosing instructions and measuring cups or droppers that rarely match each other and could confuse even the most careful parent or caretaker." As a result, "this could easily lead to under- or over-dosing, with potentially dangerous consequences, researchers said."
"Twenty-six percent of products had no dispensers, such as a cup or medicine dropper, forcing parents to measure out doses themselves," USA Today (12/1, Szabo) reports. "But even products with dispensers had problems." For example, "label instructions on 99% of these products conflicted with markings on the dispensing cup or dropper."
Bloomberg News (12/1, Cortez) reports that last year, the Food and Drug Administration issued voluntary industry "guidelines (pdf) for the labels on nonprescription liquid children's medicines and measuring devices...after numerous overdoses were attributed to confusing labels." The results of this new study, which was conducted by "Shonna Yin, a pediatrician at the New York University School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital Center," may now "be used to evaluate how well companies that make over-the-counter children's medicines improve their products, the researchers said."
The Columbus Dispatch (12/1, Crane) reports that in an accompanying editorial suggested that "uniform use of milliliters as a measurement would help reduce errors and ensure that parents don't get confused or reach for a spoon when given directions based on teaspoons."