Kitchen spoons dangerous when dispensing liquid medicines

William Atkins
Tuesday, 05 January 2010 17:38

Science - Health

According to U.S. research based out of Cornell University, using ordinary kitchen spoons to measure liquid medicines can have drastically different results depending on the size of the spoons. It can be dangerous!


Their research found that taking medications in this manner time and time again over several days (with a kitchen spoon rather than a measuring device), can add up to a dangerous situation especially for toddlers.

People pouring medicines with kitchen spoons can “overdose” a child with too much medicine or “underdose” a toddler with not enough medicine (to the point that it is not effective).

The conclusion found by the study was written up in the January 5, 2010 issue of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine (152:1).

The paper was authored by U.S. economist Brian Wansink (professor of consumer behavior at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, U.S.A.) and U.S. marketing and consumer behaviorist Koert van Ittersum (assistant professor of marketing at the College of Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.).

The title of the article is “Spoons Systematically Bias Dosing of Liquid Medicine."

Based on past findings that using ordinary kitchen spoon to dispense liquid medicines can lead to errors and pediatric poisonings, Drs. Wansink and van Ittersum decided to look into the possibility that kitchen spoons are dangerous to use when dispensing liquid medicines.

Page two continues with specifics on the experiment with kitchen spoons and medicine dosages.