Accountability Please

On May 1, the FDA issued a precautionary recall of children's cold and allergy medications from a major drug manufacturer. According to the medical news website "MedPage Today" the recall list includes; Tylenol Infants' Drops, Children's Tylenol Suspensions, Children's Tylenol Plus Suspensions, Motrin Infants' Drops, Children's Motrin Suspensions, Children's Motrin Cold Suspensions, Children's Zyrtec liquids in bottles, and Children's Benadryl Allergy liquids in bottles.

The McNeil Consumer Products recall is due to a "possible breach of manufacturing quality standards" which translates into medications that might have higher concentrations of active ingredients than indicated on the label and other medications that have untested inactive ingredients. Also in the mix are over the counter medications that may contain "tiny particles." The FDA has currently received no complaints or documented events.

Recall is not an unfamiliar word to the McNeil Corporation as their products have a recent history of "Uh-Oh" moments. Last September, Children's Tylenol was recalled for bacterial contamination, and earlier this year it was recalled again due to a "moldy, musty" smell.

My question: "Why can't the McNeil Company get it right, especially when their safety issues relate to the small bodies of children? If drug company administrators were educators in a public education system who had breached the safety of thousands of children in their charge, they would be fired, without a job, likely with a marred career. Why does strict accountability standards often predominately apply to the public education system? What about the ginormous tentacles of our health system? Where's the accountability noise?