FDA Moves to Remove Popular Decongestant from Michigan Shelves

Everywhere you turn lately in Michigan, it seems like everything is getting recalled—from food to everyday products. It's really beginning to feel like you can't trust what’s on the shelves anymore, as more and more products face re-evaluation and removal.

According to CNN, the FDA is proposing to pull oral phenylephrine – a key ingredient in lots of popular over-the-counter decongestants – from the market, saying the evidence shows it just doesn’t work when taken orally.

Oral phenylephrine is in many over-the-counter decongestants, and it’s supposed to help clear up stuffy noses. The idea is that it makes breathing easier when you're congested from a cold or allergies. But lately, studies have shown that it might not actually work as well as people thought. So clearly, buying something that's supposed to clear up your stuffy nose might not be doing the job as promised.

Here’s a list of products that have phenylephrine in them:

• Sudafed PE
• Vicks DayQuil
• Mucinex Sinus-Max
• Tylenol Cold + Flu
• Zyrtec-D (in some formulations)

These are just a few examples of the common cold and sinus medications that rely on oral phenylephrine to help relieve congestion.

Could Those Products Be Pulled From Shelves?

If the FDA goes through with the proposal to remove oral phenylephrine, then yes, products containing phenylephrine could eventually be pulled from shelves. However, it wouldn’t be immediate. If the proposal moves forward, manufacturers would be given time to either reformulate their products (using a different, effective ingredient) or remove them from the market altogether.