asthma and fda rant

I'm a pretty laid back person for the most part. I don't let much bother me. I do have my pet peeves that are ridiculously insignificant, but overall I'm a passive person. There is one thing that has recently set me apart from all others on my "angry" meter.

My poor little Prince charming got himself a cold. We found out a little over a year ago that he also had asthma. His first asthma attack was a nasty one led on by his cold and cough. He was given breathing treatments every 15 minutes for an hour and then sent home with a prescription and orders for more every 4-6 hours for the next 24. Since we moved away from out animals, he hasn't been as sick and hasn't had nearly as many asthma attacks. Well, with this recent cold, he used up the last of his cough syrup so I went to get more. The kind we usually get him wasn't on the shelf so I asked the pharmacist. She told me that the FDA decided that the risks outweighed the benefits for cough and cold med for under 6yo and that they should fight it off with their immune system. I kept my cool at the time so I didn't go off on the pharmacist because it wasn't her fault-she didn't give the order! But I explained to her that an unfortunate "side effect" of my little Prince's cough was an asthma attack! If I can keep the cough controlled, then the asthma doesn't kick in. But the FDA says I can't keep his cough under control anymore. I got him the cough syrup she recommended and it didn't do any good for him at all. I used it for several days as directed and it didn't help a thing. So I did what any insanely rageful mother with a sick baby would do: I went back to the pharmacy and got the children's version that said "under 4 yo do not use" figured almost 3-1/2 is close enough and cut the dosage down to 1/2 tsp. He had one more really good (or really bad?) asthma attack that made me certain he was going to end up in the ER last night. I gave him another breathing treatment and he passed out for 13 hours with only on spell of waking and coughing in between. It was treated with more medicine and another breathing treatment and this morning he's his wonderful playful little self. I'm almost 100% certain that the med I got him was the same stuff we used before, only with the label changed.