Treating what doesn't ail them
- Source: Global Times
- [08:54 March 29 2011]
- Comments
By Wei Na
The parent of a child who had an allergic reaction to cold medicine distributed to students at Tongzhou district's Xintiandi Kindergarten has gone to the Web to accuse the school of medicating children regardless of their health status in a bid to promote the medicine's brand.
A total 180 children at Xintiandi were fed Youkadan - which includes pediatric paracetamol and amantadine hydrochloride, an antiviral - for two days, according to a Beijing News report.
A person who claimed to be a parent with the user name "mishishahai" wrote on the bbs.bato.cn forum last Friday that their child developed red spots and swelling around the eyes and face the morning after taking the medicine, which was given without parents' approval.
Among 26 replies expressing anger towards this "irresponsible behavior," some parents also expressed concerns about children returning home with two packets of Youkadan powder because "the kindergarten asked them to."
A senior teacher at Xintiandi surnamed Zhang told the Global Times Monday that they arranged for about 150 children to take Youkadan to "prevent the kids from getting colds during the season when the weather is changing," but denied that any children had serious allergic reactions.
"All 150 children were healthy enough to attend class today. The post and the report online exaggerated about one child's slight allergy and twisted our school's attentive actions. We reserve the right to sue them for that," Zhang said assertively, pointing out that the school only has 150 registered students.
She added that the drugs were a donation from the Youkadan Children's Health Fund (YCHF), and claimed that the kindergarten has not accepted one penny from the company.
YCHF was co-founded by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund (CCTF) and Youkadan's producer Renhe Group in 2010, which is also when they started their "Sunshine Care Seedling Action" campaign. During spring and autumn, the YCHF administration office gives a free box of Youkadan to each kindergarten that signs up to participate.
"It was a surprise to learn that many children took the medicine when the kids had no signs of having the flu. That's totally improper," said a YCHF administration office employee surnamed Liu, who is in charge of distributing the medicine to a dozen schools in Tongzhou, including Xintiandi.
"It's the first time a child has had an allergic reaction in our records," she added. "Actually, there's a clear description of allergy warnings in the seventh article of the instructions in every box of the medicine."
