How to read a Drug Facts panel

The order is fixed

A Drug Facts panel is not designed by the manufacturer. The headings, their order and their typography are set by regulation, so the panel on a store-brand cough drop and the panel on the brand next to it have the same shape. That is the point: it lets you compare two boxes in a few seconds.

Every product page on this site reproduces the panel's fields in the printed order, quoted from the label FDA holds. 1,183 of the 1,260 products here have a panel we can read.

The first two lines

Active ingredient, with the amount in each lozenge. Then Purpose, which names what that ingredient does in the vocabulary the monograph gives it: cough suppressant, oral anesthetic, oral demulcent, antacid, stop smoking aid.

These two lines are the whole comparison. Everything else on the front of the box is marketing. The purpose index shows how the 1,260 products here divide up on this line alone.

(a) Statement of identity. The labeling of the product contains the established name of the drug, if any, and identifies the product as a "cough suppressant" or an "antitussive (cough suppressant)."21 CFR 341.74(a)

Uses

What the product is for, in wording the monograph permits. The regulation is remarkably prescriptive here: it supplies the sentence and lets the manufacturer pick from a list of synonyms.

That is why so many cough drop boxes read almost identically. It is not laziness, it is compliance. And it is why the use pages on this site can be built by reading the labels rather than by someone deciding what each product is for.

Warnings

The longest section, and the one people skip. It contains the standing warning for the category, then anything specific to the ingredient, then the conditions under which to ask a doctor, then when to stop.

(1) For oral and topical antitussives. "A persistent cough may be a sign of a serious condition. If cough persists for more than 1 week, tends to recur, or is accompanied by fever, rash, or persistent headache, consult a doctor."21 CFR 341.74(c)(1)

That sentence is on every cough suppressant sold in America because a regulation puts it there. It is the most useful thing on the box.

The last line

Inactive ingredients, in one run of text. It is the line that tells you what the lozenge is actually made of, and the one worth reading if you are avoiding something. See active and inactive ingredients.