LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) -- Thousands of kids will come home on Halloween with a bag full of treats, but can they tell the difference between candy and what's in the medicine cabinet?
Doctors are warning parents to keep a close eye on loose candy and loose over-the-counter medicine in the days following Halloween. Several medications share a striking resemblance to candy in children's trick-or-treat bags.
THV 11 spent the day at the Thrasher Boys and Girls Club in Little Rock asking children if they could tell the difference between some medications like Exlax, Sudafed PE and TUMS and candy that resembles them.
Four out of five kids could not tell Exlax from a Hershey's bar and 3 out 5 could not tell TUMS from Smarties. But all five children knew the difference between Sudafed PE and Redhot candies.
Dr. Henry Farrar with Arkansas Children's Hospital says they receive more child overdose cases involving over-the-counter medications than any other drug. This is primarily due to parents not paying as much attention to the seemingly less harmful medications.
"Sort through everything, get the candy that they can have and set it aside somewhere where they know where that is so they are much less likely to get confused over what they can eat and what they can't eat," says Dr. Farrar.