Thyroid disease

• The ramp-up to cold and flu season is a bad time for consumers to learn that some of their most trusted go-to products don’t actually work.
• The 2023 FDA advisory panel met to review growing evidence that oral phenylephrine is an ineffective treatment for nasal congestion.
• Consumers may also question whether combination cough, cold and flu products will still be safe and effective for use at home.

The backstory

• The most recent analysis is not the first time an FDA advisory panel has scrutinized oral phenylephrine.
• A 2007 panel examining its use concluded that more studies were needed to make a final decision regarding the effectiveness of phenylephrine.

Safety concerns

• No safety issues with oral phenylephrine alone were documented in the 2023 advisory panel conclusion.
• However, researchers and advisory panel members have raised concerns about the possibility of products containing ineffective phenylephrine remaining on pharmacy shelves.
• Even if oral phenylephrine is safe, taking an ineffective medication could cause consumers to spend money on products that work no better than a placebo.

The story behind pseudoephedrine

• Luckily, the nonprescription oral nasal decongestant pseudoephedrine – which is known to be effective – has been commercially available for many years.
• Pseudoephedrine is a nasal decongestant that is taken by mouth to relieve a stuffy nose.
• If the FDA acts on the advisory committee’s conclusions that oral phenylephrine is not an effective nasal decongestant, pseudoephedrine may be the only remaining oral medication available without a prescription to treat nasal congestion.

Pseudoephedrine should not be used in doses higher than those that are recommended on the label. Use of products containing pseudoephedrine should be stopped and a health care provider consulted if dizziness, nervousness or sleeplessness occurs.
Pseudoephedrine should not be used by consumers with heart disease, high blood pressure, thyroid disease, diabetes or an enlarged prostate without talking with a health care provider like a pharmacist or a physician.
Products with pseudoephedrine should not be used while taking, or within two weeks of stopping, a prescription monoamine oxidase inhibitor, which is most commonly used to treat for depression or Parkinson’s disease.

Other treatments

• These products are sold under the brand name Afrin and others.
• All of these non-drug approaches can help sooth the nasal passage to provide temporary relief from congestion.
• If symptoms of congestion continue for more than two weeks, or if signs of an infection arise, go see your doctor.

Lucas Berenbrok is part owner of the consulting company, Embarx, LLC. Colleen Culley and Karen Steinmetz Pater do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• CAMPBELL, Wis., Oct. 16, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Singleton Schreiber, with its co-counsel from Fitzpatrick, Skemp & Butler, filed two class action lawsuits in Wisconsin Federal Court against corporations they allege manufactured firefighting foam or its components.
• The Complaints claim that the manufacturers' foam contaminated hundreds of private wells on residential property in the Town of Campbell.
• The firms also filed two class action complaints against the City of La Crosse, which used AFFF firefighting foam at the La Crosse Airport  located on French Island on which the Town of Campbell is located.
• In the property damage complaints, plaintiffs and class members are residential property owners with private wells seeking compensation for loss in value to property and annoyance, discomfort and inconvenience, among other damages.

• Radiaction Medical , LTD (“Radiaction”), a medical device company whose mission is to provide radiation protection to the entire medical staff during interventional procedures, today made two announcements.
• First, it has raised $12.6 million in Series C2 funding led by U.S. private equity fund InnovaHealth Partners with participation from additional co-investors.
• Second, the company elected Christopher Barys to serve on its Board of Directors.
• Barys joins the organization with 30+ years of medical device sales, marketing, and business experience, including leading growth and innovation within the cardiac catheterization and image-guided spaces.

• As Teflon, they made pots easier to clean starting in the 1940s.
• Today, PFAS are pervasive in soil, dust and drinking water around the world.
• Facing lawsuits over PFAS contamination, the industrial giant 3M, which has made PFAS for many uses for decades, announced a US$10.3 billion settlement with public water suppliers on June 22, 2023, to help pay for testing and treatment.
• Biochemist A. Daniel Jones and soil scientist Hui Li work on PFAS solutions at the Michigan State University and explained the promising techniques being tested today.

How do PFAS get from everyday products into water, soil and eventually humans?

• PFAS can get into soil through land application of biosolids, that is, sludge from wastewater treatment, and can they leach out from landfills.
• If contaminated biosolids are applied to farm fields as fertilizer, PFAS can get into water and into crops and vegetables.
• Scientists in our research group at Michigan State University are working on materials added to soil that could prevent plants from taking up PFAS, but it would leave PFAS in the soil.

How are remediation projects removing PFAS contamination now?

• But these methods are expensive for large-scale projects, and you still have to get rid of the chemicals.
• That remediation project has cost over $3 million, but it prevents PFAS from moving into drinking water the community uses.
• Once PFAS is captured, then you have to dispose of PFAS-loaded activated carbons, and PFAS still moves around.

What are the most promising methods scientists have found for breaking down PFAS?

• PFAS have multiple fluorine atoms attached to a carbon atom, and the bond between carbon and fluorine is one of the strongest.
• Normally to burn something, you have to break the bond, but fluorine resists breaking off from carbon.
• There are several other experimental techniques that are promising but haven’t been scaled up to treat large amounts of the chemicals.

What are we likely to see in the future?

• If the exposure is mostly from drinking water, there are more methods with potential.
• The big challenge of remediation is making sure we don’t make the problem worse by releasing other gases or creating harmful chemicals.
• Freon, a chlorofluorocarbon, was the solution to replace toxic and flammable ammonia in refrigerators, but then it caused stratospheric ozone depletion.
• If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that we need to think through the full life cycle of products.