Kids and Cough: Dr. Mandel Sher Cough Expert at FDA
Nearly 100 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose including children, according to the Center for Disease Control. Drug treatment for kids and cough has come under increasing scrutiny due to opioids in some medications.
One internationally known Tampa Bay area Cough Specialist, Dr. Mandel Sher, is doing his part to increase the safety of treating kids and cough and stem the tide of cough medicine-related opioid deaths. Dr. Mandel Sher, Cough Expert and Founder of the Center for Cough in Largo, focuses on comprehensive cough treatment and leads the investigation of novel, safe medicines.
Dr. Mandel Sher represented the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology at FDA Roundtable of Experts on Kids and Cough
Dr. Sher represented the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology at a roundtable meeting of experts convened by the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research on the use of cough suppressants in children, particularly opioid-containing antitussives.
Dr. Sher says, “At the present, there is no safe and effective cough medicine for both children and adults.”
As a result of input by Dr. Sher and his colleagues, the FDA has restricted the use of codeine and tramadol medicines in children.
Codeine is approved to treat pain and cough, and tramadol is approved for pain. These medicines, however, have been shown to carry serious risks, including slowed or difficult breathing and death, which appear to be a greater risk in children younger than 12 years. Codeine and tramadol should also be limited in some older children, according to the FDA. Codeine and tramadol are both opioids.
Dr. Sher is the only dedicated cough doctor in the Southeast, a leading clinical investigator of new cough drugs, and an educator among his peers. After 25 years of diagnosing and effectively treating patients with chronic cough in Sher Allergy Specialists, Dr. Sher founded the Center for Cough in 2009. He offers patients a comprehensive approach to cough diagnosis and cough treatment.
Dr. Sher is a frequent contributor at national professional society meetings. So far in 2017, Dr. Sher has presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology and the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Dr. Sher has also contributed to the evolving body of knowledge on cough by being a co-author on a paper reporting clinical research findings of a promising new non-narcotic cough drug that was presented at the American Thoracic Society International Meeting in Washington, D.C. last month.
