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Every 10 minutes in the United States, a child under age 6 is taken to the emergency room after swallowing medicine they shouldn’t have. Medication poisoning is a serious risk for young kids and can occur with both prescription and over-the-counter medicines found in the home.

This poisoning risk led us to ask adults across the U.S. about the medicines they have in their homes and how they store them.  Nearly 1 in 4 grandparents of young kids say they store their prescription medicines in easy-to-open containers such as daily dosing boxes or in places that are not out of reach of young children.

We also found that, to help prevent accidental poisoning and over-dosing, about two out of every three adults support laws that would require medicine to be packaged in single doses. This result was the topic of national and international news coverage (UPI: Many support single-doses of medications).

Although many adults support single-dose packaging requirements, those laws are not in place yet. To keep children safe, parents and grandparents are urged to keep medicine out of reach of young children in child-safe containers.

• Full report: Easy-access medicines a poisoning risk for kids at home
• UPI: Many support single-doses of medications