Medications can raise heat stroke risk. Are doctors prepared to respond as the planet warms?

(Inside Climate News, 20 Aug 2019) As climate change brings dangerous heat waves, too little is being done to better warn patients or physicians of the growing risk, medical experts say.

On a hot day in Boston, a young boy arrived in Dr. Aaron Bernstein's emergency room with chills and signs of confusion. He had overheated while playing outside, and he wasn't sweating enough to properly cool down. 

The boy, who has autism, was taking several medications — Seroquel, Cogentin and Benadryl — all of which can change the body's response to heat. 

In a city like Boston, which has experienced only a handful of 100-degree days over the past century, the danger associated with abnormally high temperatures, including how medications factor in, might not be immediately obvious. 

"It is not a part of our culture to think of heat as risky," said Bernstein, a pediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital and co-director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard's School of Public Health.

As global temperatures rise and extreme heat waves become more common, so does heat illness. But while doctors have known for decades about the adverse effects of some medications on how the body regulates temperature, little is being done in the U.S. to better warn patients or physicians of the growing risks associated with climate change, doctors, researchers and community health experts said. 

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Inside Climate News, 20 Aug 2019: Medications can raise heat stroke risk. Are doctors prepared to respond as the planet warms?