False Hope in a Tube

For millions, hope is medication in a bottle, a tube or a carton. Last year $8 billion was spent on medicines sold without a prescription. Many over-the-counter remedies relieve the common ailments that bother almost everyone at one time or another. But some of the pills and potions promise what they cannot deliver--like hair on a not-so-hairy head.

Other products work but can harm if combined unwittingly, or perhaps desperately, with another medicine intended for the same malady. Acne is a case in point.

After a major review of over-the-counter remedies, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed new regulations for such medications. One new rule would prohibit non-prescription drug cures for baldness. The drug agency says that they simply do not work. Neither do the products promoted as aphrodisiacs, and agency regulations would ban them.

In addition, new rules would require all acne preparations to contain one of the ingredients approved as safe and effective remedies such as sulfur, benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid or sulfur in combination with resorcinol. New labeling requirements would warn against using more than one anti-acne product at the same time. That sounds like mere common sense, but many a desperate teen-ager has battled acne over-zealously and has wound up setting his or her skin on fire.

The proposed restrictions are not an attack on over-the-counter medicines. On the contrary, the drug administration has been shifting increasing numbers of drugs to that category from prescription status. That’s good news, because in the case of many everyday ailments those drugs are often just what the doctor would have ordered had a physician been consulted, so consumers are spared a bill for an office visit.

The products at issue offer false hopes for those who are self-conscious because of a balding head or complexion problem that can be controlled but not cured. These anxieties are minor only to those who have not suffered them.

Baldness is inherited. Six out of 10 American men are at least partly balding by 55. There is no cure, but research is in progress on a prescription remedy. Most acne problems can be minimized-- but not at the snap of a finger, so some teen-agers have outbreaks on prom night and some adults face new pimples on the day of a job interview.

The drug administration is the federal cop on the public-health beat. The agency is charged with policing the laws that make it illegal to distribute products that promise but do not deliver benefits, and with determining the safety of substances.

Before the new rules can take effect, the public is invited to comment. Those who have wasted money on potions in a hopeless cause should be the first to urge approval.