A mother rushed her baby to hospital when the tot went floppy and passed out after taking infant medication.
Tesco have pulled all the Galpharm’s Junior Ibuprofen, after concerned mum Alison Smith complained that the packaging did not contain all the necessary information.
Her four-month-old son Jensen Pettitt became unresponsive and lost consciousness after taking just 2.5ml of the baby medicine – the advised dosage.
Doctors at Maidstone Hospital spent an agonising 45 minutes working on the infant before he finally came round.
Alison, from Wouldham, Kent, has formed a Facebook campaign to advise other mothers about the product – after dozens of others came forward to complain about the medicine.
The 36-year-old said: “Jensen had been ill so we gave him the medicine.
“We put it on his lips but he was was chucking his arms about and wouldn’t take any of it so of course we force fed it to him.
“I then tasted a bit and my mouth went completely numb, while my partner Adrian got a blister on his tongue.
“At this point we thought ‘we have just given our child 2.5ml of this, we need to do something.
“Jensen was drifting off to sleep so we phoned the 111 NHS service.
“While on the phone he went floppy, we were banging and clapping and he just wasn’t responding.
“The operator told us to get him to A&E as soon as possible.
“We took him to Maidstone Hospital where a medical team finally got him to wake up.
“He was very grumpy and disorientated but has since made a full recovery.”
Terrified Alison immediately contacted Tesco at Larkfield where she had bought the product and producer Galpharm, which is owned by Perrigo.
Tesco immediately removed the batch – which includes 80,000 bottles in total – from its shelves nationwide and also contacted the company.
A Perrigo spokesman said: “Galpharm Junior Ibuprofen meets all regulatory quality and safety standards required for a licensed medicinal product to be sold in the UK.
“The company employs rigorous product safety and quality processes and any adverse event is evaluated with utmost importance and thorough assessment and analysis.
“After comprehensively testing the batch of the Galpharm Junior Ibuprofen in question, no identified concerns or issues with the product were found.
“We are very pleased to read that baby Jensen is doing well.”
But Miss Smith said the pharmaceutical company only provided her with some limited test results on Friday – more than four weeks after her initial complaint – after a social media post about the ordeal attracted more than 26,000 shares.
She added that none of her family are allergic to ibuprofen and Galpharm initially told her no one else had informed it of similar reactions.
They eventually told her there were a number of complaints on file.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said it has not been informed of any issues with the product.
Alison said she has been contacted by scores of parents since she posted on Facebook who have told her their children have had similar reactions to the product.
Tesco, who Alison is not blaming for selling the product, have been contacted for a comment.
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
