CVS Will No Longer Sell Decongestant That Doesn’t Actually Do Anything

Recently, the FDA determined that phenylephrine, the ingredient that replaced pseudoephedrine in over-the-counter cold and sinus pills after that got all regulated because people were making crystal meth with it, doesn’t actually do anything at the levels available in over-the-counter medications. I mean, I could have told them that, anyone who has sinus issues could have told them that, but it took them 50 years and some kind of panel to figure it out. Surprise! They’d only been testing OTC medications to be sure they were safe, not to be sure that they actually worked.

Now, CVS has decided to pull medicine containing the ingredient from the shelves — which is is good, because it’s kind of crappy to sell people things that don’t work. Especially sick people!

Via Insider:

While CVS will still sell some drugs with phenylephrine — Dayquil and Allegra contain it alongside other active ingredients — a spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that it is removing all items that contain it as the sole active ingredient. The FDA has not asked pharmacies to remove the drugs, the Journal noted, but appears on track to ultimately remove phenylephrine from its list of approved medicines.

For those that need congestion medicine that will actually work — just do what I do. Go to the pharmacy counter and get the actual pseudoephedrine, take that with some Ibuprofen and then worry unnecessarily that your chronic sinus issues are going to get you put on a list of suspected crystal meth manufacturers, and then police will raid your home and find you sitting there with a box of Kleenex and say “Oh sorry miss, we thought you were breaking bad.”

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That the FDA is now considering whether or not things actually work or not is a major win for consumers, who should be able to trust that a product being sold for a particular purpose is going to do what it says it is going to do. Perhaps it will even lead them to finally freaking approve some broad spectrum sunscreen.

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CVS pulling the meds after finding out they don’t work? Also pretty great! It would be even better, however, if they would also get rid of all the homeopathy nonsense or at least keep it far from the actual medicines and slap a label on it saying “This is a sugar pill with absolutely no detectable trace of the supposed actual ingredient” or “Homeopathy relies on the premise of water having a memory, which is obviously not a real thing.”

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We don’t have universal health care in this country, which means a lot of people rely largely on drug stores and pharmacists to self-manage their own illnesses. It matters that people are able to buy medications that actually work in these stores and are not being fooled into buying nonsense.