Thank the FDA as you cough and sniffle your way through the winter

One of its advisory panels just announced that phenylephrine, the active ingredient widely used in over-the-counter cold and flu meds, works no better orally than a placebo.

That’s odd: in the 1970s , that very same agency said phenylechnphrine was effective.

Congress in 2005 passed a law making it harder to buy drugs containing an effective decongestant, pseudoephedrine, to curtail its illicit use in meth production.

The FDA doesn’t deserve all the blame for the miserable cold season we’re about to have.