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CVS ditches common cold meds after FDA advisers say they're useless

arstechnica.com

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Re: CVS ditches common cold meds after FDA advisers say they're useless

#251

Post by Obscurity4340 »

jstarfish wrote: post #132

Heh. I'm at the tail end of either COVID or the worst sinus infection of my life. I asked my wife to grab some (real) Sudafed from the CVS, which they also were not stocking (they are constantly robbed), but the pharmacist recommended "oxymetazoline hydrochloride" (Afrin?) as being just as effective without the side effects. Gotta say, she wasn't wrong. As a nasal spray it works way quicker than Sudafed pills and wit…

I feel like @theRealSudafed needs its own ironic Twitter account at this point if the Marvelous Mister Musk wasn't such a glorified shithead

Re: CVS ditches common cold meds after FDA advisers say they're useless

#252

Post by Obscurity4340 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #209
Auracle wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We literally knew the day they put it in the shelves it was 100% ineffective. The FDA dropped the ball hard on this.

It's a weird intersection of the War on Drugs, security theater and pharmaceutical regulation that brings out the worst of all three.

This is exactly my point although I don't know that I could have encapsulated so succinctly and elegantly. Its unmitigated idiocy all around

Re: CVS ditches common cold meds after FDA advisers say they're useless

#253

Post by Nursie »

cwsx wrote: post #248
Nursie wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Australia we have the same restrictions on pseudoephedrine, possibly worse ones (you have to show ID and it gets recorded centrally so you don’t just pharmacy-hop) And it’s done nothing. Hasn’t affected availability. Hasn’t cut down on illicit lab operations. Nothing. People will say “It has cut down on the amount of pseudoephedrine going to illegal meth operations”, as if that in itself is a useful outcome i…

When I lived in Sydney I had a few friends that frequently bought Rikodeine (dihydrocodeine cough syrup), which is also meant to be tracked via pharmacists recording IDs. My friends knew what pharmacies didn't bother to track it, normally if you were a 'repeat' customer and knew the pharmacist. They were able to buy 10~ bottles in a day from 8 - 10 pharmacies, repeating every few days. This was also in Sydney's centr…

Interesting you can get rikodeine at all, given that even mild (8mg) codeine tablets are now prescription only here. That stuff (from a quick search) appears to still be available OTC.

As someone who has always used low-dose codeine+whatever analgesics when I have had a bad cold or migraine, I resent these being removed from the market recently as well. People can tell me that paracetamol and ibuprofen are just as effective until they're blue in the face, but that little bit of opiate uplift when I'm feeling like absolute shit was very psychologically helpful... Oh well, this is the world we live in.

Re: CVS ditches common cold meds after FDA advisers say they're useless

#254

Post by Obscurity4340 »

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #165

Its annoying how the biggest consideration in whats get OTC'd is how useless it is (only slightly above homeopathic level useless) or how painful the overdose is (more painful -> sure, knock urself out) and little recreational potential it has (see point 2 + again, knock urself out) with a few radical exception(s) Edit: if its pharmacologically active and effective for "an" indication, its fun/euphoric, and super saf…

Its almost like they dont give a fuck about safety or efficacy and "they" just don't want you getting high

Edit: meth is technically legal, with the caveat its only the levorotatory isomer

Re: CVS ditches common cold meds after FDA advisers say they're useless

#256

Post by phpisthebest »

flashback2199 wrote: post #227
goodluckchuck wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously retail pseudoephedrine was never a substantial contributor to methamphetamine production (tell me again why that’s illegal?). Which raises the question, what what the real goal in preventing people from buying functional medicines? Frankly I think the specific intent was exactly this. The main effect was to cause human suffering and Occams razor tells me the main effect was probably the intended effect.

> methamphetamine production (tell me again why that’s illegal? Because it ruins people's lives, that's why.

Over-criminalization of society, and the fall out from the "war on drugs" has ruined far far far far far more lives then illegal drug abuse ever could or would

That is with out getting into the debate on if it is even ethical for a government to regulation what a person consumes, even if you believe it is the current method of criminalization and prohibition is not effective in the stated goal of reducing drug use/abuse, a lesson we should have learned as a society with the passage of the 18th amendment and its repeal the 21st amendment

Of course that is not the real goal but .....

Re: CVS ditches common cold meds after FDA advisers say they're useless

#257

Post by mikrotikker »

I_Am_Nous wrote: post #235
flashback2199 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> methamphetamine production (tell me again why that’s illegal? Because it ruins people's lives, that's why.

And the vast majority of people who make it don't have proper chemistry training, lab equipment, PPE, or pure chemicals to make pharmaceutical grade methamphetamine with no impurities or unreacted reagents. I'm all for medicine that helps people and amphetamines absolutely can, but methamphetamine doesn't help people. It enslaves them.

Get the govt to make it properly, give it out for free in treatment centres where they have to consume it, giving an interface to the addicts for mental health and drug rehab staff (or have a trapdoor that sends the addicts to a gator pond when they walk in the door)

Re: CVS ditches common cold meds after FDA advisers say they're useless

#259

Post by J_Shelby_J »

alphabettsy wrote: post #205
cjensen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, the rate-limit for purchasing pseudoephedrine is insufficient for allergy sufferers. They end up having to go out of their way to stock up during the off-season.

It’s not an appropriate treatment for allergies though. Are people taking it daily for a season rather than using a medication indicated for longer term use?

It’s the only thing that reliably works after living in Texas for a lifetime. That and Benadryl.

The real pro tip is that the four hour doses are just enough to deal with an exposure event and reduce the side effects to a minimum.

Re: CVS ditches common cold meds after FDA advisers say they're useless

#260

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

PcChip wrote: post #190
Auracle wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it’s worth, Afrin and other similar nasal sprays are by far the best decongestant. The only issue is you can only take them for a few days straight, or you’ll have rebound congestion when you try to quit. There are oodles of stories online of people who didn’t heed that advice and upped their dosages again and again for months. Here’s the best method: Afrin (etc.) at night so you can sleep, and during the da…

Afrin is so incredibly addictive that I highly recommend never using it… use it once and you’ll be hooked for years, trust me!

True. You get used to it after a few days and now can't sleep without it, in a never ending cycle. There are much better drugs now, for example fluticasone (Flonase, Avamys).
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