Children and Drug Safety

"Cynthia Connolly, in this brilliant piece of scholarship, demonstrates not only that drug safety in children has often driven key moments in pharmaceutical regulation, but that issues regarding the logistics, ethics, and market priorities of testing pharmaceuticals in children have evolved and endured for over a century."— Scott Podolsky, Harvard Medical School and author of The Antibiotic Era
"By exploring the historical context of children and drug therapy, Connolly is the first to link the historiography of pharmaceuticals with the history of childhood and health care. Children and Drug Safety is timely and will make significant contributions to scholarship in the history of health care."— Heather Prescott, author of The Morning After: A History of Emergency Contraception in the United States
Making children’s medicines tasty makes the experience of being sick less stressful for kids, and helps doctors and parents get kids to take them peacefully. But there is also the danger, if they are too tasty, that kids will consume them in secret, and overdose.
Children’s aspirin is a stark example of that. St. Joseph Aspirin for Children was released in 1947. It was orange-colored and orange-flavored and often advertised as “candy aspirin.” And “within a few years of its introduction, the incidence of aspirin poisoning in young children increased dramatically, almost five hundred percent,” writes Cynthia Connolly, a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the history of pediatric health care. “I, myself, am a former aspirin-poisoned child,” Connolly told me. It happened in 1961 or 1962, when she was 3 or 4 years old, she says. “My parents kept it up high because they knew I loved it. It had a wonderful granular taste; it tastes like a SweeTart. One time when they weren’t looking, I got up there and got the St. Joseph Aspirin for Children, took almost the whole bottle, and then fell off the counter and broke my arm. While still holding the medicine by the way.” Her parents found her when she screamed, and she had to go to the hospital and get her stomach pumped—and her arm set.
The dangers of candy aspirin led to the development of the safety cap, Connolly writes. And the pharmaceutical industry came to realize that it probably wasn’t a great idea to sell medicine as “candy.”— Julie Beck, The Atlantic
‘Candy aspirin,’ safety caps, and the history of children’s drugs: excerpt of Children and Drug Safety by Cynthia Connolly on Penn Today— Penn Today
"New Scholarly Books: Weekly Book List, June 8," by Nina C. Ayoub— Chronicle of Higher Education
"This is a succinct, well-organized topical and chronological exploration of child health research and social welfare policy debates and related legislation from the late-19th through the early-21st century."— Choice
"Children and Drug Safety is an extremely readable and surprisingly enjoyable book that adds nuance to our understanding of the history of pediatrics, medicine, and pharmacy."— Pharmacy in History
"[The book] demonstrates a deep understanding of the technical details of pediatric care that reflects the author’s own professional expertise in this area....[and] constitutes a valuable and sobering introduction to the history of American child drug safety debates during the twentieth century."— The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
"New Scholarly Books: Weekly Book List, June 8," by Nina C. Ayoub— Chronicle of Higher Education
"This is a succinct, well-organized topical and chronological exploration of child health research and social welfare policy debates and related legislation from the late-19th through the early-21st century."— Choice
"Children and Drug Safety is an extremely readable and surprisingly enjoyable book that adds nuance to our understanding of the history of pediatrics, medicine, and pharmacy."— Pharmacy in History
"By exploring the historical context of children and drug therapy, Connolly is the first to link the historiography of pharmaceuticals with the history of childhood and health care. Children and Drug Safety is timely and will make significant contributions to scholarship in the history of health care."— Heather Prescott, author of The Morning After: A History of Emergency Contraception in the United States
"Cynthia Connolly, in this brilliant piece of scholarship, demonstrates not only that drug safety in children has often driven key moments in pharmaceutical regulation, but that issues regarding the logistics, ethics, and market priorities of testing pharmaceuticals in children have evolved and endured for over a century."— Scott Podolsky, Harvard Medical School and author of The Antibiotic Era
‘Candy aspirin,’ safety caps, and the history of children’s drugs: excerpt of Children and Drug Safety by Cynthia Connolly on Penn Today— Penn Today
"[The book] demonstrates a deep understanding of the technical details of pediatric care that reflects the author’s own professional expertise in this area....[and] constitutes a valuable and sobering introduction to the history of American child drug safety debates during the twentieth century."— The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
Making children’s medicines tasty makes the experience of being sick less stressful for kids, and helps doctors and parents get kids to take them peacefully. But there is also the danger, if they are too tasty, that kids will consume them in secret, and overdose.
Children’s aspirin is a stark example of that. St. Joseph Aspirin for Children was released in 1947. It was orange-colored and orange-flavored and often advertised as “candy aspirin.” And “within a few years of its introduction, the incidence of aspirin poisoning in young children increased dramatically, almost five hundred percent,” writes Cynthia Connolly, a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the history of pediatric health care. “I, myself, am a former aspirin-poisoned child,” Connolly told me. It happened in 1961 or 1962, when she was 3 or 4 years old, she says. “My parents kept it up high because they knew I loved it. It had a wonderful granular taste; it tastes like a SweeTart. One time when they weren’t looking, I got up there and got the St. Joseph Aspirin for Children, took almost the whole bottle, and then fell off the counter and broke my arm. While still holding the medicine by the way.” Her parents found her when she screamed, and she had to go to the hospital and get her stomach pumped—and her arm set.
The dangers of candy aspirin led to the development of the safety cap, Connolly writes. And the pharmaceutical industry came to realize that it probably wasn’t a great idea to sell medicine as “candy.”— Julie Beck, The Atlantic