BUFFALO, N.Y. — Stores in Western New York where children's Tylenol and Motrin would normally be sold were empty.
2 On Your Side went inside four area stores, including a pharmacy where over-the-counter children's pain and fever medications are sold.
There were no infant and children's liquid acetaminophen and ibuprofen products at the Walgreens locations on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo and Transit Road in Clarence. The same was true at Target on Walden Road in Cheektowaga.
There were four bottles on a shelf at Brighton Eggert Pharmacy in the Town of Tonawanda.
Pharmacist Don Arthur said the shortage is due to demand.
"Just too much demand for the current supply," he said. "I think unfortunately with RSV, every flu season we deal in our community with the common flu, we deal with colds, we deal with RSV, but we still have COVID in smaller levels, but it's still present and now it seems we have a bit of a spike with RSV."
"Specific to Tylenol, it first appeared on our radar when we had patients calling us from over the border. Fort Erie Niagara Falls even as far as Toronto, because apparently up in Canada the liquid forms of Tylenol are unavailable," Arthur said.
Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health sent 2 On Your Side the following statement:
We are not experiencing shortages of Children’s Tylenol in the United States. There is increased consumer-driven demand for our children’s pain reliever products in certain regions and we’re taking all possible measures to ensure product availability.
A three-year-old girl was hospitalized with RSV and pneumonia. Her mother told Reporter Claudine Ewing, "the lack of medicine on shelves was terrifying, parents shouldn't have to face this."
Arthur offer this advice for parents, "if you're having troubling finding (liquid Tylenol) get the chewable form. Just have to talk to your pediatrician or primary doctor or pharmacist about the appropriate dosing."
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