Unproved Plum

Medicine

When the average man gets a sneezing spell, a stuffed-up head and a runny nose, he thinks he has a cold. If he takes antihistamine tablets, and his sneezing and stuffiness stop, he thinks that the anti-histaminic has "cured his cold." Not necessarily, says the American Medical Association.

In a detailed report in the current A.M.A. Journal on the status of anti-histaminics, now being sold over the counter without prescription, the A.M.A.'s Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry says: "The patient may have been mistaken in his belief that he was getting a cold; he may have been manifesting the symptoms of an allergy, or his cold may have aborted without the aid of any therapeutic agent."

Although clinical studies have been reported on 2,357 victims of "colds" who were given anti-histaminics, the results mean little, the council argued, because there is no proof "that the condition treated was actually the common cold." Furthermore, "over half of the cases were investigated in studies with inadequate controls or without controls."

This is not to say that anti-histaminics have been proved worthless, but the council wants proof of their value to be shown by wider and far more searching studies, than any yet undertaken. And the council is still worried about harmful side effects (e.g., drowsiness, dizziness, damage to bone marrow, reduction of white blood cells) reported to follow the use of some anti-histaminics in certain cases.

Meanwhile, the A.M.A. Journal took a roundhouse swing at the huckster tactics ("Kills Colds in Hours!", "Safe Even for Children") now being used to peddle anti-histaminic "cold cures." Sales of the drugs in 1950 may reach $100 million, it is estimated--"a plum for those who want to pluck it... The possibilities for exploitation seem almost unlimited. Drivel such as some of the [advertising] pleas for over-the-counter anti-histaminics should not be thrust on the American public. There is a limit to what the public should be asked to swallow."

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