Volume 22, Issue 7 April 2007 1 During the peak of cough and cold season millions, of Americans find themselves searching through the cold medicine section of the neighborhood store in an attempt to relieve nasal stuffiness and sinus pressure. Until recently, the choice included with the ingredient pseudoephedrine found in over 700 cough and cold remedies. Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed ® ) , phenylp...

We describe 2 patients with intracranial hemorrhage after ingestion of diet pills containing phenylpropanolamine (PPA) in combination with caffeine. The first patient had bilateral simultaneous intracerebral hemorrhages, and the second had a subarachnoid hemorrhage. PPA is widely used most often without prescription and causes intracranial hemorrhage more often than has been realized. The mecha...

Previous studies suggested that early pregnancy exposure to specific oral decongestants increases the risks of several birth defects. Using January 1993-January 2010 data from the Slone Epidemiology Center Birth Defects Study, we tested those hypotheses among 12,734 infants with malformations (cases) and 7,606 nonmalformed control infants in the United States and Canada. Adjusted odds ratios an...