As many of you know, I'm as neurotic as the next parent. But this voluntary recall of infant cold medicine has the whiff of overkill to it. Starting this week, a wide variety of over-the-counter baby meds are being yanked from store shelves because of the discovery that, when misused, they present a risk of lethal overdose, particularly in tots under two years of age. Examining the data from the past four decades, the FDA discovered 69 fatalities from antihistamines and 54 from decongestants. Public safety advocates are urging the FDA to ban the meds for children under six. Ban the stuff? Because of 123 deaths over the past 40 years? At the risk of sounding heartless, this doesn't strike me as one of the great public safety crises of our times. Plus, we're talking about deaths from misused products (products, in fact, whose labels specifically instruct users to consult a doctor before administering to children younger than two). I mean, if that's the standard we're now applying, shouldn't we also be freaking out about children's vitamins, seeing as how iron overdose from vitamins is the leading cause of poisoning deaths in children under six? That said, let's not get too teary eyed over the plight of the poor beleaguered drug makers. Critics of these medications argue that no level of risk is acceptable because there's little proof that the drugs are effective in kids under two--a fact of which government scientists have long been aware. Heavy sigh. While the possibility that these drugs are worthless (other than as placebos for parents) doesn't surprise me, it does annoy me--and not just because I cringe to think of how much I've spent on those tiny bottles of fruit-flavored decongestant. Doctors recommend these medications. And parents dose their kids--at times provoking truly spectacular tantrums--on the assumption that someone somewhere has tested the products to make sure they actually work. The fact that this assumption is naive--laughable really--suggests something is deeply screwed up with the system. --Michelle Cottle