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Hospital emergency departments are still prescribing codeine medications for children, despite concerns about the drugs' safety.

A new study releases today reports only a slight decrease in codeine prescriptions for kids over the past decade. The study says "growing evidence" shows that some children could die from taking codeine-based drugs.

Researchers also found that one-third of children don't get any benefit at all when taking codeine to relieve pain or to shorten or reduce the severity of coughs and colds.

The study is published online today in the journal "Pediatrics."

 

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