Antihistamine‐related deaths in England: are the high safety profiles of antihistamines leading to their unsafe use?

This report notes that the rising trend in sedating antihistamine‐related deaths may be contributed to by their increasing availability and the perceived negligible dangers associated with antihistamines, both from the general public and healthcare professionals.

SPS commentary:

Cases reported to the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths from England occurring in 2000‐2019 with antihistamine detections at post‐mortem were extracted for analysis. A total of 1666 antihistamine post‐mortem detections were identified from 1537 cases. Sedating antihistamines available for purchase as a pharmacy‐only [P] medicine were present in a significant majority of cases (85.2%, p<0.01). Authors of report call for urgent review of sedating antihistamines with pharmacy‐only classification.

British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology