Dextromethorphan no better than placebo abstracts

 What is most interesting about this whole story is that is was actually the FDA that commissioned the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council to test several thousand drugs for safety and effectiveness. They found 710 of these prescription drugs to be either too dangerous for human use or ineffective. The FDA was Court ordered in 1969 to remove these drugs from the market, but they never did. I find it very hard to believe that the NAS/NRC would make a mistake on dangers or effectiveness of all 710 drugs. But I have no doubt that the FDA could care less if a drug is effective or safe. Remember the generic drug scandal where the FDA was caught approving untested drugs in exchange for payoffs? Then they retaliated against the drug company that blew the whistle on them. And look at aspartame which failed FDA approval the first 4 times. The fifth time this poison was approved and the FDA official that pushed it through went to work for the company that manufactures it. Again, I can give you all sorts of examples of corruption within the FDA. They are one of my favorite topics to research. And all a drug needs to remain on the market for 66 years is FDA approval. As long as they are getting their cut they can care less if the drug is safe or effective. Do you really think all these studies are wrong?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16928841?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSyst...

Child assessment of dextromethorphan, diphenhydramine, and placebo for nocturnal cough due to upper respiratory infection. " A total of 37 children age 6 to 18 years of age were randomized in a double-masked fashion to receive a single bedtime dose of DM, DPH, or PL. Children found no significant difference in the effect of DM, DPH, or PL for any study outcome, and responses by parents and children were significantly correlated."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15231978?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSyst...

Effect of dextromethorphan, diphenhydramine, and placebo on nocturnal cough and sleep quality for coughing children and their parents. "CONCLUSIONS: Diphenhydramine and dextromethorphan are not superior to placebo in providing nocturnal symptom relief for children with cough and sleep difficulty as a result of an upper respiratory infection. Furthermore, the medications given to children do not result in improved quality of sleep for their parents when compared with placebo. Each clinician should consider these findings, the potential for adverse effects, and the individual and cumulative costs of the drugs before recommending them to families."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8496765?ordinalpos=7&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Efficacy of cough suppressants in children.

"Mean cough and composite symptom scores decreased in each of the three treatment groups on each day of the study; there were no significant differences. Regression analysis, with reduction in cough score as the outcome of interest, showed that neither dextromethorphan nor codeine was significantly more effective than placebo (p = 0.41 and 0.70, respectively). Reduction in cough score was positively correlated with the severity of cough at the start of treatment (p = 0.007). Our data suggest that, in the doses used, neither codeine nor dextromethorphan is superior to placebo in treating night cough in children."

By the way, when ephedra was banned the FDA left an exception for the sale of pharmaceutical ephedrine HCl. And tryptophan is back on the market and has been for years. And PPA was never pulled from the market. The FDA asked manufacturers to VOLUNTARILY stop using PPA in their products. They were not mandated to do so.