From: "Steve Harris" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Scopolamine
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 16:01:08 -0600
Message-ID: <[email protected]>

"CBI" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
>
>
> "Howard McCollister" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> >
> > Scopolamine is an anticholinergic drug with some serious potential
> > adverse side effects. There are about a thousand places on the web with
> > information on this drug. Just type scopolamine into your search engine.
> >
> > Benedryl is an antihistamine, not related at all to scopolamine.
> >
>
> Look it up and learn something.
>
> --
> CBI, MD


Yep. Some recent tests have suggested that drivers can be as badly imparied
when full of OTC antihistamines, as when legally drunk.

May the FDA burn in hell for all the people who've died and are going to die
because Claritin isn't OTC and diphenhydramine still is.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Scopolamine
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 18:52:26 -0600
Message-ID: <[email protected]>

"Howard McCollister" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
>  "CBI" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > Scopolamine is an anticholinergic drug with some serious potential
> > > adverse side effects. There are about a thousand places on the web
> > > with information on this drug. Just type scopolamine into your
> > > search engine.
> > > 
> > > Benedryl is an antihistamine, not related at all to scopolamine.
> > >
> >
>
>
> > Look it up and learn something.
>
>
> Not sure of your point. One is an anticholinergic, the other is an
> antihistamine. Not related. Different classes of drugs. Completely
> not-the-same.
>
> Did you think they were related somehow?
>
> HMc

Most antihistamines, and all those available over the counter, also are
somewhat anticholinergic. That's why they make you sleepy, give you a dry
mouth, cause the elderly demented to get more demented, and so on.  The same
is true for some older antidepressents, with Elavil being the poster child.

Remember, the primary class of drug something is placed "in," is a human
invention. The drugs themselves don't know about these things.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Scopolamine
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 23:48:30 -0600
Message-ID: <[email protected]>

"Howard McCollister" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:hmacNOSPAM-
> Oh, I get it now. You're saying some of the SIDE-EFFECTS are the same.
> OK, I'll buy that.

We are still having a failure to communicate. Anticholinergic means it binds
to choline receptors in your brain (in this the muscarinic subset).  It
sticks there instead of choline, and causes you problems. Any drug that does
that has the same effect. You can call it an "effect" or a "side effect,"
and that will be nothing more than a bit of language.

Do you understand this?  Scopolamine isn't choline-- it's a molecule from a
plant. Benedryl isn't choline either. They both stick on the same choline
receptor in your brain and foul it up. In that respect they are identical
because they have identical actions. Okay?

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Scopolamine
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 14:46:07 -0600
Message-ID: <[email protected]>

"Richard Alexander" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Be that as it may, I find it difficult to understand how any OTC
> product could have the profound effects that Scopolamine has.


First, scopolamine patches are not OTC.  Second, whether a product IS OTC or
not is not perfectly mirrored by its side effect profile (you are being
naive, and assuming that OTC vs Rx is done in the best interests of your
safety, forgetting the heavy influences of historical development, illegal
FDA bribery, legal political bribery, stupid laws which require the spending
of money to prove safe things safe, and availability of investment money to
do this).

Many an OTC drug is more dangerous or has more side effects than the
analogous newer Rx drug. In the mid 1980's there was actually an OTC
scopolamine pill (!) for motion sickness. If you took too many of those you
could go mad as a hatter. Don't know if it's still sold.

..