Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA)

  Sloan’s “Promise”: Heritage Brand or Hazard in a Bottle? Posted on 1st October, 2025 (GMT 18:38 hrs) ABSTRACT This representation critically examines Sloan’s Liniment/Balm (Piramal Pharma), exposing concerns about its irrational Fixed Dose Combination of counter-irritants (methyl salicylate, menthol, camphor, turpentine oil, eucalyptus oil, capsaicin), absent from global pharmacopeias (USP, Ph. Eur., WHO EML) and unsupported by clinical evidence in arthritis. Risks such as systemic salicylate poisoning, camphor neurotoxicity, turpentine irritation, and capsicum hypersensitivity are compounded by misleading claims of “lasting arthritis relief,” which distract from proper treatment and may delay evidence-based care. Regulatory loopholes in India (Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940; Drugs and Magic Remedies Act, 1954) enable this obsolete heritage brand to persist despite international withdrawal. Sloan’s thus embodies an ethical paradox: irritants sold as therapy, financial wound...

  Piramal’s Supradyn: Illusory Vitality and Expensive Urine Posted on 2nd October, 2025 (GMT 07:10 hrs) ABSTRACT This communication critically examines Piramal Pharma’s over-the-counter multivitamin supplement Supradyn, highlighting concerns of pharmacological redundancy, cumulative risks, and misleading advertising. While promoted as a universal “energy booster,” Supradyn’s formulation—comprising multiple water- and fat-soluble vitamins, trace minerals, and herbal additives like ginseng—offers limited physiological benefit for healthy adults: water-soluble vitamins are largely excreted, fat-soluble vitamins and trace minerals may accumulate to toxic levels, and ginseng poses risks of insomnia, cardiovascular effects, drug interactions, and psychiatric destabilization. Evidence from Indian and global experts underscores that routine supplementation is unnecessary in non-deficient populations, and clinical trials consistently show minimal to no outcome benefit, contrary to perc...