The Uselessness of Phenylephrine
I've recently had to deal with the medical profession a lot more than in the past and I'm finding this sort of thing everywhere. OTC medicines that by current standards would not be made OTC, <i>surgeries</i> that are extremely common but have never had quality  randomized trials, official sounding diagnoses that on inspection are actually defined as "we have no idea", lack of consensus about how to treat some of the most common conditions in the human population (e.g. back pain), medical device approvals abusing the shortcut of being "substantially similar" to an existing device to evade regulatory scrutiny, the complete lack of enforcement of what goes in supplements... I feel like my entire understanding of the medical system in the US was a lie. We're constantly touting that we have the most advanced technology but if you have a complex condition you are likely to fall prey to multiple kinds of grift.