Locally developed all-natural child cough medicine hits national market

It hit the national market in December, selling on Amazon.com, in local pharmacies and in pharmacies in St. Louis, Miss. The product, Honey Don’t Cough Children’s Buckwheat Honey, is an all-natural cough suppressant safe for children 12 months old and older—developed by a married Grand Rapids couple.

Dr. Jeff Chamberlain, 31, a family practitioner with Advantage Health, and his wife, Christine, 34, a former elementary school teacher, developed the product after reading a 2007 Penn State study comparing buckwheat honey to dextromethorphan. Dextromethorphan is not recommended for children under four. Dr. Chamberlain expects the FDA to raise the age to six.

“I found out that [cough medicine] dosing was never actually studied on young kids,” says Dr. Chamberlain. “Then I started reading more and more reports on kids dying from recommended dosages, and that shocked me. I started telling patients to use buckwheat honey for their kids under four, but they couldn’t find it.”

Bees make Buckwheat Honey by pollinating the Buckwheat flower. Buckwheat Honey is darker and thicker than most other honeys. Scientists aren’t sure why it suppresses coughing, but it’s proven to have throat soothing effects, antioxidants, to boost the immune system and to have antimicrobial effects.

When the Chamberlains then 18-month-old daughter caught a cold, they gave her buckwheat honey for her cough.

“Only one store in Grand Rapids carried it,” says Christine. “We gave it to her in a spoon, and she had it on her hands and face, in her hair and on her clothes. It’s dark like molasses. It was a mess.”

The honey comes from growers in Oregon, one of the few suppliers that can produce it in large enough quantities. A company in Atlanta packages Honey Don’t Cough in pre-measured packets with a tear-open spout. Kids suck it out of the package with no mess, and they like it because it tastes good.

Source: Dr. Jeff Chamberlain and Christine Chamberlain, Honey Don’t Cough Children’s Buckwheat Honey; Craig Clark, Clark Communications

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].