Well, turns out there was a 50 year old scam that most of us probably have fallen for at some
point. But it's not the usual type of scam that's technology related that I typically talk about.
You see, the US FDA, Food and Drug Administration, has decided recently that a very popular oral
decongestant that most of us have bought before over the counter simply doesn't work.
The drug is called phenylephrine, and you've probably seen it on store shelves plenty
of times in oral decongestant products. Typically, the name is going to end in PE,
and it was first approved in 1976 for this purpose. But just a few days ago,
in a vote of 16 to 0, a committee for the FDA decided that it is not effective.
And now they're going to have to decide, I guess in a separate decision, whether or not
to just pull it from store shelves and revoke its over the counter designation. And yes,
I do, in my opinion, consider this absolutely a scam because you just
know the pharmaceutical companies already knew that it didn't work, yet continued to sell it.
Apparently, the FDA looked at five studies over the past two decades and also analyzed
some of the data that was used in the original decision way back in 1976. And they said quote,
"In conclusion, we do believe that the original studies were methodologically unsound and do not
match today's standard. By contrast, we believe the new data are credible and do not provide
evidence that the oral phenylephrine is effective as a nasal decongestant."
But here's the thing. We already knew for a while that phenylephrine didn't work. If you
look up studies about this, there are a ton of them that have shown over the years that
it is no better than placebo. And actually way back in 2006, the University of Florida asked
the FDA to reevaluate this medicine because studies had shown even way back then that
it was no better than placebo at the 10 milligram dose that it was approved for.
And then in 2015, the same University of Florida College of Pharmacy recommended to the FDA that
they just pull phenylephrine from the shelves altogether, because even doses up to 40 milligrams
in a study showed that it was no better than placebo. Yet the FDA in recent announcements
has the gall to say, "The committee discussed new data on the effectiveness of oral phenylephrine
and concluded that the current scientific data do not support that the recommended dosage of
orally administered phenylephrine is effective as a nasal decongestant."
Seriously? They were told about this way back in 2006 and they have the audacity to say that
it's "new" data. And I'm pretty sure there were studies even further back showing that
it was not effective. [Sarcastically] So thank you FDA for finally protecting consumers over
15 years after you were first specifically warned about this not working at that dose.
Let alone almost 10 years later, it was specifically recommended that it be pulled
altogether. Can you seriously imagine how much money the pharmaceutical companies have made
off this nonsense, literally placebo? Now, ranting aside, I do want to clarify a few
other things. First of all, they did not find any evidence that the safety was an issue.
So at least there's that, but of course there are side effects to any drug,
including this one. Also, another thing to clarify is this all has to do specifically
with the oral taking of phenylephrine. Apparently the nasal spray version still
is effective to some degree. And also it still has other uses like in surgeries,
apparently for anesthesia and apparently also for dilating your eyes, stuff like that.
So it has other purposes. It's not like it's a totally inert drug,
but for oral decongestant purposes, it doesn't work. And another thing to point out, is there
is a known actually good decongestant that you can get over the counter. Literally over the counter,
you have to ask the pharmacist for it, but it's Sudafed or Pseudoephedrine.
And this is different from Sudafed PE, which is the one with phenylephrine that doesn't work.
Regular Sudafed with pseudoephedrine does work. But again, usually in the US at least you have
to go to the pharmacist and ask, and they'll bring it from behind the counter. The reason
for that is because, I believe back in 2006, the US government decided that because Sudafedrin can
be used to make meth, they limited the amount that you can buy on a daily or monthly basis.
And you have to ask the pharmacist for it, you have to present ID. And drug
companies realized, well, even adding this slight barrier to getting it,
it's going to cause us to sell a lot less. So they looked at a another oral decongestant,
which was phenylephrine, that was not very popular because it obviously didn't hold a
candle to the real pseudoephedrine, but it was approved already back in 1976.
So they started just putting that on shelves to replace the original pseudoephedrine. Of course,
now we know it just doesn't work. And I bet a lot of people don't realize that there is a
difference between something like Sudafed PE and regular Sudafed. And another thing I'll point out
is usually if you see a medicine that ends with D instead of PE, that usually means it actually has
the real pseudoephedrine in there. Where again, as PE is the phenylephrine, which doesn't work.
So yeah, now you know if you didn't hear the news already, that you probably shouldn't be
buying this stuff anymore, if you already have been. And if you think it worked,
it probably was placebo. Anyway, let me know what you think down in the comments.
Did you buy this stuff a lot? And what do you think? If you enjoyed the video,
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