With 12 million bottles sold each year, Calpol is a medicine cabinet staple in most homes, soothing childhood aches and pains thanks to its main ingredient – paracetamol.
But now a leading doctor has warned that children could be at risk of accidental overdose from Calpol and other brightly coloured drugs that ‘look more like milkshake than medicines’.
Doctors say that Calpol’s syrup-sweet strawberry taste and pink colouring also makes it ‘a(chǎn)lmost irresistible’ to some youngsters.
‘Some children go to alarming lengths to get their hands on it while their parents’ backs are turned,’ said one.
Health professionals have now urged Calpol’s manufacturers to make the medicine less appealing to youngsters to prevent accidental overdose of paracetamol, which can cause serious liver damage and, in rare cases, prove fatal.