Explain the circumstances under which children should be prescribed drugs for off-label use. Be specific and provide examples.

The various existing reasons for the use of off label medications include existence of illnesses among children which lack any approved medication or treatment procedure. Lack of sufficient knowledge concerning pediatric is also another factor that has so much contributed to utilization of off-label drugs (Balan, Hassali & Mak, 2018). Due to their characteristic of having variations in needs, off-label drugs react differently in different patients. Therefore, there is need for healthcare providers and health researchers to collaborate towards studying the medications and making quality decisions of prescribing these off-label drugs. Failure of standard treatment in the country has also contribute so much on off-label drugs use. It is therefore the mandate of the government to provide healthcare insurance for every citizen to minimize the use of these off-label medications. Having insufficient alternative therapeutic approaches as well as lack of enough clinical trials among the pediatric population has also influenced the use of off label drugs positively (Yackey et al., 2019). It is through conducting these clinical trials and seeking alternative types of therapies that the safety, dosage and efficacy of any given medication can be determined. Some of the circumstances where off label drugs can be administered to children include during emergency period. For instance, if a child mistakenly encounters food poisoning and immediately taken to the hospital, the available healthcare provider may opt to offer an off label medication for pain reduction as they wait for further help. The healthcare provider may also consider administering the off label medication if there is sufficient evidence of the drug’s efficacy in such cases. For example, a healthcare provider may decide to use a chemotherapy known to treat only one type of cancer to treat other types of cancer.