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Yes, you read the title of my blog entry right it’s been a while since there are rumors in the internet asking if Saridon is safe to take. The analgesic drug is a combination of 150 mg of propyphenazone, 250 mg of paracetamol and 50 mg of caffeine and it is use to relieve headache, muscle pain and tooth ache. Right now Saridon is available in the suburbs and major in Visayas and Mindanao.
With the campaign of fast relief in 15 minutes, it gain major converts of buyers and followers compare to other paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin products. For a person who works in a stressful and headache prone work it’s a good market strategy for me to take the medicine in to consideration, but the question is why does Bayer the manufacturer of the said drug doesn’t distribute it in the Luzon particularly in Metro Manila? That one question gives me a ring to search in the internet about the said product and one was landed on this article about the warning on the use of Saridon published by Horacio Paredes in his blog which Bayer gives their answer to Parades in his online column in Abante.
Checking the content of the drug again caught my attention and that is the 50 mg caffeine, and we all know that it is a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that is a psychoactive stimulant when overuse can be addictive and when abused it leads to irregular rapid heart beat or palpitation, gastrointestinal disturbance muscle twitching and respiratory alkalosis which explains article of Conrado R. Banal III in the Philippine Daily Inquirer dated July 28, 2010 on the “Possibly Fatal” Saridon. In Banal’s article it was mention that “the product induced dizziness, fainting, hardness of breathing, low blood pressure, heart failure and—as the term indicates—even death” which according to him it was mentioned by some of his contacts at the pharmaceutical business.
In the article of Dennis Fetalino in Journal Online dated July 24, 2010 he mentioned that Saridon was recalled by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) due to phenacetin, the original component in the medicine which has a side effect and after-effect of carcinogenesis that is one of the major contributors of cancer, the pull out happens in 1983 which the drug was developed 50 years earlier (1933). Phenacetin was replaced with paracetamol, and it the product was announced reformulated and has massive campaign in VisMin. Yes, commercialism is doing its ways and wonders to get the buyers return to the product despite of the issues thrown to the product, same marketing magic done in food supplements with No Approved Therapeutic Claims.
I end my search disappointed in checking the information about Saridon is that the manufacturer lacks details about the product and the question on why it’s only exclusively distributed in Visayas and Mindanao. With the brewing rumors against the drug I think the Department of Health (DOH) and Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) who has more knowledge on drugs and its content and give possible clarification and information that will educate the buying market specially those in suburbs who’s doctor are themselves and TV advertising because the lack of access to real doctors.
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