An Update on Cold Medicine

Once upon a time, you could just go to the store and get a bottle Sudafed when you had a cold, and hope that it would unclog your sinuses long enough so that you could get some sleep. Whatever kind of cold relief you took, you had to wonder whether it worked. No cold medicine is perfect, but maybe you would have felt worse if you didn't take it. Or maybe you were starting to recover. It didn't much matter; there are too many cold relief medicines on the market to try them all out and compare when you're sick. The main ingredient in Sudafed, which seemed to be a miracle, was pseudoephedrine. But it was discovered to be an ingredient in meth, so it became restricted, and you might not be able to get it when you need it. There was also phenylpropanolamine, which was eventually ruled unsafe. That left us with phenylephrine, which has been in the news lately because it was discovered to be ineffective. Yeah, they all sound the same to us, but what are we supposed to take for a head cold now? The real kicker is that phenylephrine was known to be ineffective years ago! The reason we are only now hearing about is comes down to funding. Phil Edwards of Vox explains what happened to our cold medicines. (via Geeks Are Sexy)