• 23 Posts
  • 21 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 13th, 2023
  • btaf45@kbin.socialOPtoNews@kbin.social•A Decongestant in Cold Medicines Doesn’t Work at All, an F.D.A. Panel Says. The panel’s vote tees up a likely decision by the agency on whether to essentially ban the ingredient, phenylephrine.
    3·
    1 year ago

    An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration agreed unanimously on Tuesday that a common decongestant ingredient used in many over-the-counter cold medicines is ineffective.

    The panel’s vote tees up a likely decision by the agency on whether to essentially ban the ingredient, phenylephrine, which would result in pulling products containing it from store shelves.

    If the F.D.A. ordered their removal, a trade group warned that numerous popular products — including Tylenol, Mucinex and Benadryl cold and flu remedies — might become unavailable as companies race to reformulate them.

    On Monday and Tuesday, the panel reviewed several existing studies and largely agreed that the research settled the question that the ingredient was useless and no better than a placebo.

    Several advisers noted that patients taking the drug were merely delaying their journey to a useful remedy.

    “I think we clearly have better options in the over-the-counter space to help our patients, and the studies do not support that this is an effective drug,” said Maria Coyle, the chairwoman of the panel and an associate professor of pharmacy at Ohio State University.

    Why It Matters: These Are Popular Staples of the Medicine Cabinet.
    Every cold and flu season, millions of Americans reach for these products, some over decades. The decongestant is in at least 250 products that were worth nearly $1.8 billion in sales last year, according to an agency presentation. Among the products: Sudafed Sinus Congestion, Tylenol Cold & Flu Severe, NyQuil Severe Cold & Flu, Theraflu Severe Cold Relief, Mucinex Sinus Max and others.

    The ingredient has long been considered safe and effective under an old, outdated agency standard, and the F.D.A. still says that it is safe.

    Many remedies that do include phenylephrine also contain other, more effective medicines as well.

    And medications that are considered effective for sinus and nasal congestion do still include nasal sprays with phenylephrine, like Afrin, or oral pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed, or nasal steroids, such as Flonase.

    Many popular cold and flu products that don’t specifically target congestion do not include the ingredient.

    And it is still widely considered effective when it is used in surgery and to dilate the eyes. It is destroyed in the gut, though, scientists have concluded.

    If the agency decides the decongestant should be eliminated from products, it could significantly disrupt the market for the makers of cold medicines if they do not have enough time to replace it in popular items.

    What’s more: It could possibly renew widespread use of an alternative, pseudoephedrine, which was placed behind store counters or in locked cabinets because it was often used in illicit meth labs.

    Dr. Hendeles, now an emeritus professor, said in an interview on Tuesday that he had been evaluating the ingredient since 1993.

    “The bottom line is quality research has told the true story about phenylephrine,” he said.

    The F.D.A. has formally now concluded that phenylephrine, when taken orally, is “not effective as a nasal decongestant.”

    For consumers, the potential benefits of ending use of the ingredient, the agency suggested, would include avoiding unnecessary costs or delays in care by “taking a drug that has no benefit.”

  • btaf45@kbin.socialOPtoSpace@kbin.social•Terraforming: why the Moon is a better target than Mars
    3·
    1 year ago

    if the shop is 10 km away vs 30 km away

    It’s nothing at all like that. The moon is 384 megameters away. Mars is 54000 to 150000 megameters away, depending on orbits.

    So it would be like 384 meters vs 54-150 kilometers.

    Escaping the gravity well on the moon is also much cheaper.

    [In terms of infrastructure and accessibility, it’s really no contest. The Moon is closer, always has a view of Earth, can exchange signals and deliverables hundreds of times more quickly than can be exchanged between Earth and Mars, and is easier to land on and take off from. Certain infrastructure could be easily shared between the Earth and the Moon, such as the internet, whereas Mars would likely, due to its remote nature, need its own standalone infrastructure.]

  • btaf45@kbin.socialOPtoNews@kbin.social•Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to websites he dislikes
    2·
    1 year ago

    The company formerly known as Twitter on Tuesday slowed the speed with which users could access links to the New York Times, Facebook and other news organizations and online competitors, a move that appeared targeted at companies that have drawn the ire of owner Elon Musk.

    Tech is not your friend. We are. Sign up for The Tech Friend newsletter.
    Users who clicked a link on Musk’s website, now called X, for one of the targeted websites were made to wait about five seconds before seeing the page, according to tests conducted Tuesday by The Washington Post.

    The delayed websites included X’s online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Substack, as well as the Reuters wire service and the Times. All of them have previously been singled out by Musk for ridicule or attack.

    The delays also affected X’s biggest rivals in social media. Links to Facebook, Instagram and the new microblogging service Threads were all throttled; all three are owned by Meta, whose founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg has been locked in an ongoing online feud with Musk over not-yet-existent plans for a mixed-martial-arts fight.

  • btaf45@kbin.socialtoNews@kbin.social•Indictment returned in Georgia as grand jury wraps up Trump election probe
    1·
    1 year ago

    Reminder that Steve Bannon frankly confessed Trump’s Start the Steal conspiracy plans to a group of Trump insiders before the election.

    https://www.npr.org/2022/07/22/1112138665/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript

    …audio from Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, surfaced from October 31st, 2020, just a few days before the Presidential election.

    Let’s listen. [Begin Videotape]

    STEVE BANNON: And what Trump’s going to do is declare victory, right? He’s going to declare victory, but that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner. The Democrats — more of our people vote early that count. Theirs vote in mail. And so they’re going to have a natural disadvantage and Trump’s going to take advantage — that’s our strategy.

    He’s gonna declare himself a winner. So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm. Also — also if Trump is — if Trump is losing by 10 or 11:00 at night, it’s going to be even crazier. Because he’s gonna sit right there and say they stole it. If Biden’s wining, Trump is going to do some crazy shit.