Drug Company Rip Off Of The Day Number 3

I have visions of people stumbling across my little blog garden while they're surfing around the Internet before bedtime and being transfixed by what they see. So excited beyond belief at my writing that they cannot get enough, and certainly won't be able to get to sleep anytime soon as they had planned. Why do I have thoughts like this? Because I'm an egomaniac. Should my fantasy be happening to you as you read these words however, you may be thinking of reaching for some Nytol®. (diphenhydramine HCl 25mg) After all, it's probably America's best known sleep aid. I prefer scotch. But hey, to each his own.

Or maybe it's those damn allergies that are keeping you awake. The sneezing, runny nose, watery eye thing making you absolutely miserable. In that case you might be thinking of taking some Benadryl Allergy Relief® (diphenhydramine 25mg) Just watch out for the side effects though, it makes a lot of people drowsy.

Hmmmm...you know what would be funny? If I took some of that Benadryl Allergy Relief® (diphenhydramine HCl 25mg), slapped a different label on it, and sold it as a sleep aid since it makes so many people drowsy anyway. Except our friends at (surprise!) GlaxoSmithKline beat me to it. Look at the drug name inside the parenthesis after both Nytol® and Benadryl ®. Same stuff. (click here for an earlier post on how GlaxoSmithKline is a master at the "money for no research" game) I've given up trying to explain that to people though, as that peaceful blue label evidently makes you unable to comprehend what is in the section that says "active ingredients." Or maybe there's a scientific study out there on the effects of different labels and resultant drowsiness that I'm unaware of. Either way I'm sticking with the scotch.