A bit on the nose

It's hard to decide what's worse: when companies openly treat people like idiots, or when they do it by stealth.

- Jane Clifton

Either way, they tend to get away with it indefinitely. The head-bangingly obvious conclusion just reached by an advisory panel to the US Food and Drug Administration is that the so-called decongestant in many over-the-counter cold medications does not decongest.

These eminent analysts might have saved years of costly research by consulting a panel of snotty, bung-nosed cold sufferers, who would have said: "Waste of bunny. By doze is still blocked after I take theb. As you cad see, I'b a bouth-breather."

Every nose owner knows that since New Zealand's - and many other countries' health wallahs had pseudoephedrine decongestants restricted to prescription-only (because oiks kept squandering them in meth labs) their over-the-counter replacement, containing phenylephrine, has given no relief to blocked hooters.

There may be a placebo effect, but given the rather obvious distinction between a nose that can breathe and a nose that cannot, it must be very rare indeed.

It's galling to be told the truth so belatedly - and at great expense to the American taxpayer.