We're in the heart of flu season right now, and many people are reasonably on edge. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that there have been at least 18 million illnesses, 190,000 hospitalizations, and 12,000 deaths from the influenza virus so far this season.
Many people run to the drugstore for relief at the first sign of a sore throat or runny nose, but you might want to think twice before ringing up your purchases, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just issued a new alert about certain over-the-counter (OTC) flu meds. Read on to find out which drugs the agency is warning consumers about.
Many people in the U.S. have struggled to find cold and flu medicines recently. Local news reports and social media posts have been showing empty shelves at pharmacies across the country for weeks now. Joe Lutmer, the owner and pharmacist at Tischbein Pharmacy, told NBC-affiliate WLWT in December that due to the cold season starting much earlier than usual, and with more vengeance following the pandemic, he has been struggling to keep both prescribed antibiotics and OTC meds in stock.
"Every single day, it's a new problem. Every single day, we have to contact all our different wholesalers and find out what the availability of these products are," Lutmer said. "Our shelves at certain times have been completely empty of one product and then comes back on, and then it's empty of another product."
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