QUESTION Owing to Health Canada's recent recommendations to avoid the use of over-the-counter cough and cold medications in preschool children, I was looking at other antitussive medications for acute cough. Codeine was recommended in the past for this indication. What is the evidence for its use and how effective and safe is it? ANSWER Cough is one of the most common symptoms in children, an...

In over-the-counter markets, the presence of two frictions is central to determine prices, liquidity, and efficiency: the search friction reflected in how long it takes to find a trading opportunity and the bargaining friction reflected in how promptly gains from trade are realized once the opportunity is identified. This paper captures both frictions by introducing an asset-specific trade dela...

BACKGROUND Shortly after the approval of an over-the-counter HIV self-test in the US, we conducted a study to estimate the proportion of men who have sex with men (MSM) in Spain who knew that unauthorized HIV self-tests could be purchased online, and the proportion that had already used these tests, as well as their socio-demographic and behavioural correlates. METHODS Between September 2012 ...

This article reviews the literature on the use of hydrogen peroxide in three professionally administered bleaching techniques from historical, technique, and safety viewpoints. Safety over time, absolute safety, and relative safety of nonvital bleaching, in-office vital bleaching, nightguard vital bleaching, and over-the-counter bleaching kits are compared. The advantages and disadvantages of d...

This paper studies portfolio choice and pricing in markets in which immediate trading may be impossible, such as the market for private equity and certain over-the-counter markets. Optimal positions are found to depend significantly and naturally on liquidity: when future liquidity is expected to be higher, agents take more extreme positions, given that they do not have to hold them for long wh...

To describe the nationwide impact of a restrictive law on over-the-counter sales of antimicrobial drugs, implemented in Brazil in November 2010. Approximately 75% of the population receives healthcare from the public health system and receives free-of-charge medication if prescribed. Total sales in private pharmacies as compared with other channels of sales of oral antibiotics were evaluated in...

(a) An over-the-counter analgesicantipyretic drug product in a form suitable for oral administration is generally recognized as safe and effective and is not misbranded if it meets each of the conditions in this part in addition to each of the general conditions established in § 330.1 of this chapter. (b) References in this part to regulatory sections of the Code of Federal Regulations are to c...

Fair competition law and public health law talk past each other when discussing pharmaceutical pricing and distribution. The former cannot agree on the relevant definition of consumer welfare. The latter does not fully comprehend the highly complex but inherently collective nature of pharmaceutical drug acquisition in the United States. This essay proposes to inject public health discourse into...

In reality, markets are incomplete, meaning that some payoffs cannot be replicated by trading in marketed securities. The classic no-arbitrage theory of valuation in a complete market, based on the unique price of a self-financing replicating portfolio, is not adequate for nonreplicable payoffs in incomplete markets. We focus on pricing over-the-counter derivative securities, surveying many pro...

DNA samples collected in clinical trials and stored for future research are valuable to pharmaceutical drug development. Given the perceived higher risk associated with genetic research, industry has implemented complex coding methods for DNA. Following years of experience with these methods and with addressing questions from institutional review boards (IRBs), ethics committees (ECs) and healt...