Despite serious health concerns over the safety and health benefits of medications that contain codeine that are prescribed to children, a recent study by the University of California-San Francisco found that there has only been a small decline in hospital emergency departments prescribing the drug over the past decade.

Recent research by the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, which is reported in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics, details solutions that include using appropriate alternatives instead, such as ibuprofen or hydrocodone.

Dr. Sunitha Kaiser, the lead study author and UCSF assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, said in an official press release, “Despite strong evidence against the use of codeine in children, the drug continues to be prescribed to large numbers of them each year.”

Kaiser continued, “It can be prescribed in any clinical setting, so it is important to decrease codeine prescription to children in other settings such as clinics and hospitals, in addition to emergency rooms.”

Codeine is an opioid that is designed to treat mild to moderate pain and help to suppress coughs. Variations in the way that children process the drug can cause one in 12 children to build up toxic amounts, slowing down breathing and potentially leading to death. About one third of children taking the drug do not develop side effects.

Multiple national and international organizations recommend not prescribing codeine to children. Guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, initially issued in 1997 and reaffirmed in 2006, warn of the potential dangers of codeine and limited documentation of its effectiveness in children with colds and coughs.

Researchers at UCSF discovered that the rates of codeine prescriptions declined from 3.7 percent to 2.9 percent over the 10-year period. However, 559,000 to 877,000 children were still being prescribed the drug each year.