Ribavirin. Red Book Committee Recommendations Questioned
1 Alberta Children's Hospital and The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2T 5C7
2 Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
We wrote this letter to comment on the recently published guidelines on the use of ribavirin for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection,1 and to commend the commentary provided by Drs Wald and Dashefsky questioning these recommendations.2 In addition we point out the recent advertising campaign by ICN Canada where it is claimed that the Pediatric Investigators Collaborative Network on Infections in Canada (PICNIC) studies3,4 show "widespread underutilization" of ribavirin for RSV bronchiolitis,5 a conclusion not supported by detailed review of the literature.




