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- Milton Tenenbein.
- From the Pediatrics and Child Health, Emergency Medicine and Community Health Sciences, Max Rady College of Medicine, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada.
- Pediatr Emerg Care. 2024 Jul 1; 40 (7): 495497495-497.
Abstract"One Pill Can Kill" is a meme originating in the 1990s. This construct lists pharmaceuticals that have the alleged potential for fatality after the ingestion of a single pill by a toddler. However, its foundation is fundamentally flawed because it contravenes a basic principle of pediatric pharmacology, allometric scaling. Other than opioids, there are no literature examples of one pill killing a toddler. The negative outcome of the one pill can kill construct is inappropriate management manifested by over-referral of young children by poison centers to emergency departments for care, overly prolonged emergency department observation and needless hospital admissions. A more accurate construct is that one pill of anything other than opioids will not kill anybody with the caveat being that we are referring to regulated pharmaceuticals.Copyright © 2024 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.
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