Turn your head . . .

So now all the sudden cough medicine doesn't work? Really? It DOESN'T help control coughing fits? Like, if you wake up at night coughing, and you take cough medicine, it DOESN'T help you stop coughing long enough to fall back asleep? Or if you take it before a meeting it DOESN'T allow you to sit through the meeting without dispensing aerosolized virus into the air?

Hmm, nope, the new "non-effective" claims don't jive with my personal experience. Besides which, in this day and age, why on earth would anyone be offering advice that seems to encourage unrestrained coughing?

The claims stem from studies that showed that cough medicines don't actually "cure" colds or the accompanying symptoms, which usually include coughing. Did anyone ever think cough medicine was a cure to the common cold? Hmm, not me.

I believe there was also some evidence showing that people not taking cough medicine got better just as fast, or faster than people taking cough medicine. The conclusion drawn from the studies seems to be that it would be better to cough all the "ickiness" out of your lungs rather than having it sit there for a couple extra days.

Great, that's probably true. However, that line of reasoning doesn't acknowledge the fact that people can't go into isolative lockdown when they have a cold. No, instead people must (or do) continue to go about their daily lives. They go to work, school, the store, church, restaurants, the movies and more, in spite of having colds. And since that is the pervasive course of action for most of humanity at this point in time, I think that it would be adventitious to keep public coughing to a minimum.

The scariest part about the media coverage of this story is not only that people might be coughing more because of it, it's that Robitussin might be selling less! You see, companies tend to stop making products that don't sell well. So I suggest that we all go home tonight and honor our good friends at Robitussin by drinking a shot of, well, Robitussin! And to further show your support, why not pick up a couple extra bottles the next time you're out shopping? It's also pretty good mixed with Fresca.