A drug that could help thousands of epilepsy patients, including children as young as 2 years, who experience partial onset seizures. A medicine hailed as the most dramatic advancement in treating juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in recent years. An incentive program developed by the FDA in collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry is being credited with stimulating research on medications in children. It required that kind of financial reward for the companies to invest the money in doing the studies. And it brings enormous benefit to children in all areas of therapeutics.
History is rife with examples of pediatric prescribing nightmares.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, for example, the antibiotic chloramphenicol was widely used to treat infections in infants. It was later determined, however, that children treated with the antibiotic had significantly higher death rates than untreated children. A series of studies found that infants metabolized the drug differently than older children and adults. As minors, they can't give informed consent. Companies have concerns about legal liability.