Zicam users lose sense of smell: Naughty Business of the Week
You may have heard that more than 130 Zicam nasal spray users had lost their sense of smell, according to the Associated Press. The Food and Drug Administration has recommended people stop using the product, which contains zinc. Zinc can cause temporary or permanent damage to nerves needed to smell, the store states.
Consumers might have missed the tiny "homeopathic" label on the packaging of the product, marketed as a cold remedy. But these and other homeopathic products are on pharmacy shelves without Food and Drug Administration testing for side effects or efficacy, according to the Associated Press.
The Associated Press analyzed FDA side effect reports and found more than 800 situations where people may have gotten ill from homeopathic remedies.
What are these products? According the AP story:
Homeopathy sprang from the inventive — some would say fanciful — mind of German physician and chemist Samuel Hahnemann in the late 1700s. Experimenting on himself, he became convinced that if an ingredient causes a symptom in a healthy person, it will treat the disease that causes the same symptom. He also theorized that diluting ingredients to minuscule, even untraceable, concentrations paradoxically makes them more powerful.
Generally speaking, most homeopathic medicine contains very low levels of the active ingredients, so people aren't harmed by their use, according to the story. At least, their bodies aren't harmed --- they just wasted their money, critics say.
In the past, Zicam manufacturer Matrixx has paid $12 million to settle with customers with complaints, and has voluntarily recalled nasal gel and nasal swab products after the FDA issued its warning last week. The company president defended Zicam in a statement, stating that loss of smell, known as anosmia, is caused by the cold:
"Matrixx Initiatives stands behind the science of its products and its belief that there is no causal link between its Zicam Cold Remedy intranasal gel products and anosmia,” said William J. Hemelt, Matrixx Initiatives’ acting president. “It is well understood in the medical and scientific communities that the most common cause of anosmia is the common cold, which Zicam Cold Remedy intranasal gel products are taken to treat. Given the enormous number of doses sold and colds treated, there is no reason to believe the number of complaints of anosmia received is more than the number that would be expected in the general population. There is no reliable scientific evidence that Zicam causes anosmia.”
But it's not just over-the-counter remedies that can dull the senses. According to a story in the U.K.'s Daily Mail (via Consumerist), some people who have eaten pine nuts reported a bitter, metallic taste that lasted up to two weeks at a time.
Sufferers of what became known on the Internet as "pine mouth" found nothing was palatable after consuming the imported Chinese pignolis. Researchers are baffled, according to the Daily Mail story, because some people are affected while others aren't, even if they ate the same nuts.
Categories: Consumer safety, Healthcare, Marketing/Advertising
