FDA says decongestant in many cold medicines doesn't work. So what does?
FDA says decongestant in many cold medicines doesn't work. So what does?
The most popular nasal decongestant on U.S. pharmacy shelves may not be there much longer. The Food and Drug Administration recently announced plans to phase out phenylephrine, the key ingredient some cold and allergy pills.
Summary
The FDA has proposed phasing out oral phenylephrine, a common decongestant in cold medicines like Sudafed PE and DayQuil, after studies showed it is no more effective than a placebo.
The drug, ineffective when swallowed due to breakdown in the stomach, remains usable in nasal sprays.
Alternatives include pseudoephedrine, nasal sprays, and steroid treatments like Flonase.
The regulatory process to remove phenylephrine could take over a year, but experts argue removing ineffective options will help consumers choose better remedies for congestion. Drugmakers are expected to challenge the proposal.
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Pseudoephedrine. In the US, you have to go to the pharmacy counter and ask for it, but it works.
And it works great! I woke up with a ton of sinus pain yesterday. My whole face ached. Two pseudoephedrine and it was gone in an hour.
The problem is that it is legally an evil drug because you can make meth from it, so it remains heavily restricted. There are more effective ways to make meth at commercial scale than by buying and crushing up cold and flu tablets, but it’s a question of moral principle, i.e. not condoning evil.
This is some dumb pearl clutching bullshit.
With this asinine logic, buying apples are condoning evil because their seeds contain cyanide and though there are more effective ways to create cyanide at commercial scale than buying apples and extracting the small amount of cyanide from the seeds it's still a question of moral principle i.e not condoning evil.
What's even bigger bullshit is that you can simply buy Benzedrine from the nasal decongestant aisle instead, remove the cotton wick and soak it in an acid (like lemon juice), and in 24 hours you have the same kind of meth they gave the Nazis. For four dollars. It's literally just sitting there on the shelf for anyone to buy.
Everything in life is made up and none of the points matter.
RemindMe! -1 day
Not sold in the US, if you're in the US and interested in chemistry.
Yes it is. Sold under the brand "Benzedrex". Walmart has it.
They spend more money and chemistry making pseudoephedrine hard to make into meth then they do on the everything else in the medicine. It's also why meth labs tend to blow up when they didn't with with standard pseudoephedrine.
Interesting. Do you know of any articles on the topic?
Look up "Impede technology". There are newer methods now but that's an example.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0731708517331904
It's not that hard. The only real issue is when the pharmacy is closed and you're trying to buy one a holiday or after-hours. I just keep some spare pseudoephedrine in the medicine cabinet to hold me over until the pharmacy opens.