The Food and Drug Administration dropped a bombshell on millions of Americans Tuesday.

After extensive research, the government experts said they found the most popular over-the-counter nasal decongestants have a major flaw.

They don't work and the medication is no better than a dummy pill.

Well, it turns out the main ingredient phenylephrine used in products like Sudafed, Allegra, DayQuil, and even Benadryl.

Allergy is ineffective in tablet form.

It does nothing to relieve your stuffy nose.

Now, doctors have questioned the drug's efficacy for years.

And Tuesday's announcement it's expected to disrupt the billion dollar market for cold and allergy sufferers.

Pharmacist Brian Pinto joins me now to explain.

Brian, I think this just came to a shock as a shock to all of us, especially because this was a unanimous vote from this advisory panel for the FDA.

Well, it had been on the horizon for a little bit.

And those of us that are in practice, it's actually something that we had discussed or had seen through some of the peer reviewed journals as early as 2007.

So so not necessarily a surprise, but, you know, phenylephrine in terms of its usage, really only came about because of pseudoephedrine, which was its precursor in a lot of these cough and cold products, having been not necessarily pulled but restricted to where it was only available behind the pharmacy counter because of illicit use of pseudoephedrine.

The chemical itself in its use for crystal meth and other illicit drugs.

Right.

So I'm curious, though, why it took the FDA so long to come to this conclusion that change was made back in the early 2000.

So we're talking about, you know, quite a few years ago.

Correct as to why it took so long.

Possibly it was, you know, who knows what the what the background behind it.

But, you know, at this point, with regards to the over-the-counter products, there's not really many alternatives when it comes to an oral pill that you're going to have and a lot of these multi-symptom decongestant or antihistamine products.

So, you know, with pseudoephedrine just being restricted and most companies wanting to have as much access to to patients as possible, whether that be in a supermarket setting or outside of the pharmacy setting, phenylephrine was was the best option that was out there.

Depending on if you're looking for decongestants, Sudafed itself in its original form, pseudoephedrine is still available and I will correct one of the things you mentioned in your intro products, like Allegra D, Claritin D and Zyrtec D, your former antihistamines that were prescription that have now gone over the counter, the ones that are combined with a decongestant do have pseudoephedrine as the decongestant in those.

So those won't be affected.

But your more common Tylenol cold and sinus or multi-symptom products that that are out on the market, those would be the ones that would be most affected.

Brian Pinto, pharmacist, thank you so much for giving us a little more insight on this.

Thank you.

Happy to help

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