Nursery World - Drug prescribing for children: strong medicine

Children are given drugs that have never been tested on their age group and doctors guess at dosages, as Wendy Wallace reports

Nine-year-old Lexie McConnell had recently moved from Wales to Oxfordshire when she was accidentally hit in the eye by a ball. The bright little girl, who was enjoying making new friends at her new school, was prescribed a powerful steroid as a treatment for the blurred vision she began to develop in her left eye.

After only two days, Lexie developed adverse reactions to the drug, which she had been prescribed at a high dose. The side effects ranged from facial swelling to psychotic episodes, but despite her parents' concern, doctors thought she should remain on the combination of steroids and antibiotics for three weeks. A fortnight later, Lexie went down with chickenpox; shortly afterwards, her parents watched helplessly as she died 'an excruciatingly painful death'. An inquest later gave the cause of death as misadventure, naming steroids as a contributory factor.

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