Monthly Archives: March 2014

I have this season’s Martian Death Flu; my brain feels like it is bouncing gently against the ceiling, tethered to earth only by the flimsiest of strings.  I am not in the right frame of mind to be reading ingredients lists, but I happen to glance at the back of the box containing the little white pills which are the only thing that stops my brain pouring out of my nose, and see:

Inactive Ingredients: acesulfame potassium, artificial flavors, carnauba wax, colloidal silicon dioxide, corn starch, croscarmellose sodium, glycerin, glyceryl behenate [likely from the Ben-oil tree], hypromellose, lactic acid, lecithin [probably, but not 100% definitely, vegetable-derived] maltodextrin, medium-chain triglycerides [from palm oil, the harvesting of which threatens orangutan habitat], microcrystalline cellulose [“refined wood pulp” — yum!], pharmaceutical ink [which may contain shellac!], polydextrose [reportedly made from corn], polyvinyl alcohol, pregelatinized starch, propyl gallate [which one study sort of claims is a carcinogen — in male rats and mice], silicon dioxide [sand!], sucralose, synthetic iron oxide, talc, titanium dioxide, triacetin [made of glycerin/glycerol and acetic acid, and therefore possibly not vegan], xanthan gum.

(As for the active ingredients, it’s hard to tell, but ibuprofen itself appears to be non-animal-sourced.  Chlorpheniramine maleate may or may not be made with bone oil, which contains pyridine, from which chlorpheniramine maleate is made, and, frankly, I haven’t the foggiest idea about phenylephrine hydrochloride.)

Glycerin pings my radar as being possible to make from vegetables, but much easier to get from animals.  (Later, doing research on every item on this list, I also find triacetin, which is made from glycerin, and therefore equally suspect — and, what the hey, pharmaceutical ink, which apparently can contain shellac, made from bugs.  Also, as you can see above, it eventually occurred to me to ask if the active ingredients themselves were also vegan.)  Oh.  Well.  Off to research….

Unfortunately, Google is not a big help here.  I found a site which tells me on two pages (here’s one, dated 3/3/14, Pfizer reference number 214905A; here’s the other, using the same reference) that my currently preferred little white pill, “Advil Allergy and Congestion“, is completely animal-product free, and on another page (dated 11/4/13, Pfizer reference number 188656A), tells me the glycerin in that product is derived from either beef or pork fat.  (This article about gluten-free medications tells me glycerin is mostly derived from petroleum these days…and the Vegetarian Resource Group tells me glycerin is the same as glycerol, and that glycerol is “typically vegan”, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the glycerin in Advil is — and on another page, the Vegetarian Resource Group tells me that glycerin is typically non-vegetarian, so what do I know?)

(I don’t mean to be dinging on Advil.  For all I know, they are vegan, they just aren’t labeled that way.  They don’t make it easy to find out, which leads me to suspect that they aren’t.  If they aren’t vegan, then they’re certainly not alone.)

Since my place of business dings me for calling in sick, not taking something (at least on work days) is unthinkable — I must be able to see and interact with other humans, whatever my immune system feels it ought to be doing instead.  A search for “vegan cold medicine” turns up nothing I’d consider scientifically tested, or remotely functional.  You’d think someone would be working on getting this “niche market” filled by now — it’s not like glycerin, lecithin and food-grade ink can’t be plant-based, and you’d just have to stamp the end result “vegan” for me to come rushing in to buy it preferentially.

Alas, this may have to be filed under the “99.9% vegan” category, like Cheerios, at least for the moment, with an eye out for swapping brands at the first available opportunity.  At least I know to avoid the “gel-caps”, which are outright made of gelatin.  In any case, all medications, by US law, have been tested on animals, so by taking any medication whatsoever I am directly contributing to that part of the machine.

Somehow, that makes me feel worse than the flu.  Fortunately, staying in bed with the covers over my head is vegan….