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A Decongestant in Cold Medicines Doesn’t Work at All, an F.D.A. Panel Says. The panel’s vote tees up a likely decision by the agency on whether to essentially ban the ingredient, phenylephrine. (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The agency now must decide whether products containing the ingredient, like some Sudafed and NyQuil products, should no longer be sold or perhaps give companies lead time to substitute other ingredients.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Does anyone know if phenylephrine is otherwise harmless? If it's essentially harmless, and assuming all these various products have other ingredients that remain effective, then it seems to me that the easiest thing for the companies to do is to move phenylephrine from the "active ingredients" section to the "inactive ingredients" section.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It is harmless. But moving it to the inactive ingredients will still leave many of them without a decongestant and they’ll have to change all of their packaging/marketing. The other ingredients are usually for fever reduction or cough suppression. It would be a waste of their money to keep a useless ingredient.

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