Decision making for routine measles/MMR and whooping cough immunisation: Author's reply

due to various compounds such as barbiturates, organophosphates, and antihistamines'.Like Dr D G Menezies and his colleagues, we had to face the problem of pulmonary aspiration of the charcoal (13 August, p 459); three of our patients developed this complication and died, despite the prior administration of parenteral metoclopramide and ranitidine.To overcome this problem in the next six patients with reduced consciousness we passed a cuffed endotracheal tube before starting treatment with charcoal.The endotracheal tube was retained for the next 48 hours, and since then we have not encountered a problem with aspiration.