Summary
The FDA has proposed removing oral phenylephrine, a common ingredient in over-the-counter cold medicines like NyQuil and Sudafed, due to evidence that it is ineffective as a nasal decongestant.
The proposal follows a unanimous vote by FDA advisers last year, and recent studies showing less than 1% of the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream when taken orally.
The public comment period ends on May 7, after which the FDA may finalize the ban.
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I have been railing about how this shit doesn’t work for what feels like forever.
The entire cold/cough aisle is essentially a scam. Pick up some generic diphenhydramine, APAP, ibuP, and some Pseduophedrine. It will cheap as dirt and do all the things that overpriced shit will do. Anything else that actually helps with a cold/cough is prescription only.
Good. Now do something about homeopathy. I’m so sick of having to explain to people that homeopathy is not medicine in any shape or form. It’s not even a home remedy. And it sits right next to actual medicine so people might accidentally buy it unwittingly.
Right, but what can they do, short of banning small bottles of water?
Ban small bottles of water that claim magical fixes?
It won’t be pulled from the shelves - it’ll just be getting some new fine-print.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
These products will mysteriously re-appear after inauguration.
It won’t even take that - you can sell products that don’t work (airborn, homeopathy, etc.), you just can’t claim that it does. So they’ll slap the standard “this product is not intended to treat, cure, or prevent any disease” disclaimer on it and people will continue to buy it.
Yet the homeopathy pills can still be on the shelves right next to real medicine.
From my understanding they don’t need to be FDA approved. At that point blame the store, not the FDA. I’m just glad they’re getting this done before they’re purged by the next administration
I’ll blame both.
Oh I’ll blame both, thank you very much. It’s well within certain governed agencies authority to say “you cannot sell that next to real medicine”.
and Sudafed
Isn’t Sudafed supposed to be short for pseudoephedrine , the stuff that actually works but they have to keep behind the counter?
There’s also Sudsfed PE which is Phenylephrine instead of pseudoephedrine. Presumably only the PE sub-brand would be banned under this rule
funny considering they caused the use of this garbage because we cant have real ephedrine cuz tweakers.
was anyone under the delusion this shit worked?
My former boss (Canada) kept a bag of ephedrine bottles in our produce cooler. Dude was twitchy as fuck. Very bird/dinosaur-like.
He would take several per day and chase them with coffee and energy shots. Then he would complain intermittently about vomiting blood due to his ulcers.
He’s probably dead now. Ulcers are no laughing matter.
Sounds like a nightmare! The man needs Adderall, holy shit
BTW, I could be wrong but pretty sure you dont want to take ephedrine, pseudoephedrine is milder while still doing the decongestion
Ephedrine is fine. It’s what’s in bronkaid.
makes your scalp itch too.
Who says you can’t? I can walk up to the pharmacy counter and get some with ID. It’s usually a helluva lot cheaper than the phenylephrine stuff, too.
duude i totally forgot they hid it behind the counter.
i grew up being able to buy full bottles of almost pure ephedrine billed as a ‘stay awake’ thing for truckers and the like. like no-doze
Yeah, you have to know about it to ask for it. Most people would buy the useless shit
Nobody is taking Nyquil to decongest, they’re taking it to pass the fuck out.
I mean yea but it does keep me dried out for the next day after I take it to pass out.
Nyquil is the only thing that works as a decongestant for me…
That’s probably the doxylamine succinate, which is an antihistamine and also relieves congestion.
As I understand it, studies have shown phenylephrine simply doesn’t do anything at the oral doses we get. It’s in there because pseudoephedrine got moved behind the counter because meth production can use it, but it’s essentially useless.
If what you’re really after is a decongestant, go to the counter and ask for Sudafed (or generic pseudoephedrine). They’ll probably ask for your ID because meth, but that shit works. I get the 12-hour kind, personally.
(Just know that it might keep you awake.)
Oooo! Do Guaifenesin next! That also has basically no evidence of effectiveness despite being on the market for ages.
The entire cough/cold aisle is a gigantic scam of combo meds.
That I didn’t know. Does that mean that the benefit from it just comes from drinking the insane amount of water it recommends?
