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Comment by blacksmith_tb | Hacker News Reader

Even something as simple as telling people to store the bottle in the refrigerator...

if you have to sell your OTC medication in a refrigerator, your sales will drop a lot. It's not somewhere people think to look, and the impression is that it's perishable. Which people can appreciate for something like a steak, but not their "safe and usual" medications.

I would gladly refrigerate it if it meant I could still use it. I've never had another acid reducer that works as well for me as Zantac.

I have so many major health problems that quite frankly I'll probably be dead before I could get cancer from this stuff.

YMMV, but 20mg famotidine tablets work well for me since Zantac is gone.

Nexium, or esomeprazole, works well, or better than Zantac, and can be purchased OTC (at least here in the UK). It’s pricey but usually lasts a couple of days or more so it stretches further.

It's still manufactured overseas. There are shady-but-legit websites that sell it.

Nothing else on the market compares.

I store all medicines (prescription and some OTC) in the fridge. So it’s the first place I look. They ARE perishable.

Any of those marketplaces you'd recommend?

Not particularly.

The few batches we've bought have been legit (Ranimax 150, product of India), but QA with these sorts of vendors isn't exactly guaranteed (for all I know, your first purchase would be reconstituted sawdust and rat droppings). I'm not comfortable giving standing referrals to any fly-by-night operation.

I just mentioned it as a possibility because for those with bad-enough GERD, there are no retail options, and the assumption is that the product has been recalled worldwide. Not so!

Paracetamol for children was stored in the fridge and just lived there in my household. It’s a sweet syrupy liquid.

It’s not over-the-counter where I live, but the adult (tablet) version is.

AKA acetaminophen AKA Tylenol. On the safety scale, it's dangerous stuff. Profitable not only because it works, and is perceived as safe, but the long term side effects are even more profitable.

I think even that was seen as a potential “guilty conscience” risk if things went into litigation, so best to just let people suffer and die, that’s less expensive.

This sort of "we refuse how to tell you to get better results because then some ambulance chaser could use that" behavior is all over the corporate world (albeit less in B2B than B2C).

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