Bubble Gum Flavoring

When my daughter came home from the hospital this week, we were given a prescription for oral antibiotics.  I remember getting an eye or ear infection as a kid and getting the ubiquitous bottle of opaque pink Amoxicillin that tasted like Tutti-Fruiti and had to be kept in the refrigerator.  

Honestly, what flavor is Tutti-Fruiti?  I think it was invented when they couldn't find a good single fruit flavoring and dumped all of the flavorings together.  My sister and I used to do something similar with the coke machines at burger joints.  Both are equally as disgusting.  I thought that Tutti-Fruiti was about as terrible as it came.

Then I got the medicine for my daughter.

It's "Bubble Gum" flavored. 

Or, at least, that's what we were told.  It doesn't smell like bubble gum.  It has the same pepto-bismol pink as bubble gum, but it smells VILE.  I mean VILE.  And the smell lingers.  It's like cooking fish- once you cooked it in your house, it SMELLS like fish for days.  

Now, I have cats, as well, so I'm used to tasting a little bit of a medication before I give it to them.  (As an aside, if you've ever tried to give your cats a prescription, you know it's like trying to force feed a Tasmanian devil.  I HIGHLY recommend cream cheese for solids and tuna in OIL for liquids- tuna in water doesn't work because it doesn't smell enough).  ANYWAY, so I taste this viscous sticky goo that I'm supposed to shoot into my daughter's mouth with a syringe.  

_I_ gagged.

How is this supposed to be palatable for children!?  And this was the antibiotic that tasted good.  I hate to think what the others taste like.

But, being a biologist, I knew she had to take it, regardless of the flavor.  And as a Mom, I wasn't surprised when she screamingly blurped out most of what I shot into her mouth.  

At least the pharmacies are smart about this and give you EXTRA.  I guess some incidently loss is expected.

After finally getting the dosage into her, I was thinking- who gives their 10 month old bubble gum?  How is this a good flavor for them?  Why not just "Applesauce" or "Pear"?  Even "Blueberry"?

I was pondering this flavoring choice as I was AGAIN wiping up the rejected, sticky pink goo in my daugher's ear and skin folds.  I had given her a Gerber Melt to help her wash the flavor down.  

And then it hit me.

Why doesn't Gerber help out with the flavorings of some of these medicines?   I think I would pay the premium to have something that actually went down easily.

And then I wondered why the medicines aren't in the freeze-dried little chips like the Gerber Melts.  It seems like my daughter hates the fact that she has no control over what is being squirted into her mouth- even more than the flavor itself.  She wants to control what goes in.

Why hasn't anyone in the food and drug industry thought of this yet?