EVERYONE WHO’S USED IT HAS KNOWN THIS FOR YEARS: FDA says commonly used decongestant ‘not effective,’ proposes removal. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has determined commonly used oral phenylephrine is ‘not effective’ and has proposed its removal from over-the-counter nasal decongestants.”

It was only brought out because the effective stuff, pseudoephedrine (Sudafed), was put behind the counter, in an apparently useless effort to reduce meth availability.