500 cold medicines banned by FDA

William Atkins
Friday, 04 March 2011 07:01

Science - Health

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Wednesday, February 2, 2011, that it is removing over 500 prescription cold, cough, and allergy products from being used in the United States.

The FDA states that many of these drugs may include unapproved ingredients or have inappropriate labels.

In othery cases, the FDA is unsure what the problem is, only that they were "grandfathered" in as safe before current FDA procedures were in place.

In addition, some of the medicines state that children younger than two years of age can take them, even though more recent guidelines state that such children should not take such medicines.

Finally, the FDA also states that some medicines contain 'irrational' grouping of ingredients, such as having two or more antihistamines in the same medicine.

The FDA announcement is being delivered to manufacturers of these products that they will stop making some of them within 90 days and that manufacturers, re-packers, and re-labelers will stop shipping them within 180 days.

In other cases, the FDA is telling these manufacturers to stop making and shipping them without any delays -- in other words: immediately!

Page two concludes with the complete list of these FDA-removed cold, cough, and allergy medicines.