Cotton in Medicine Bottles

[Johnaverill]

Anyone know why drug and supplement manufacturers put cotton in bottles?
I've got a hunch that it's completely unnecessary, but found slim pickings when I Googled the key words.

[Sal Ammoniac]

I'd guess it's to stop the pills from rattling about in transit, and getting all broken up.

Here's a related question: I though I had read someplace that there's some illness you can get by inhaling particles from the cotton wadding. Am I just making this up?

[Shagnasty]

I always thought that it was to keep the pills from getting broken up combined with a small measure of childproofing. I always thought that pill padding was the major reason.

[Kalhoun]

Originally Posted by Sal Ammoniac

I'd guess it's to stop the pills from rattling about in transit, and getting all broken up.

Here's a related question: I though I had read someplace that there's some illness you can get by inhaling particles from the cotton wadding. Am I just making this up?

Probably true. My brother used to work in a place where he had to clean out the vats where the pills were made. He said guys got sick a lot doing that. Breathing all the dust and all.

[Squink]

Originally Posted by Sal Ammoniac

there's some illness you can get by inhaling particles from the cotton wadding. Am I just making this up?

concentrations of workers in manufacturing facilities led to the recognition of a peculiar 'Monday phenomenon' among cotton textile workers. This was characterized by symptoms of chest tightness and other breathing difficulties occurring predominately on the first day back to work after Sunday break." In 1877, the term "byssinosis," derived from the Latin byssus, meaning "a fine cotton or linen," first entered the scientific literature.

Danger in the Dust

It's the Endotoxins that do it:
Longitudinal changes in inflammatory markers in nasal lavage of cotton workers. Relation to endotoxin exposure and lung function changes.

[Spoons]

Back to the OP: I once worked at a drug manufacturer. I asked the same question about the cotton.

The response I got was that it kept the pills from rattling around in transit. Sure, they might break, but the real concern was that they would bang into each other, eroding themselves, and eventually becoming smaller than they were supposed to be. Thus, you wouldn't be getting the full benefit of a full-sized pill.

So the cotton is there to fill in the container's empty space and keep the pills from rattling around too much as they make their way from factory to pharmacy to you. Once you get them home, you can throw away the cotton if you like.

[CalMeacham]

"To prevent rattling around" was my surmise, too, but:

1.) Why don't other pills do this? I can't recall seeing cotton in any other pill bottle.

2.) Why do they make it so damned hard to get out?


3.) Just want to quote a line from Woody Allen's "Play it Again, Sam": "I'm becoming an aspirin junkie. Pretty soon I'll be boiling the cotton for the extra."

[Spoons]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

"To prevent rattling around" was my surmise, too, but:

1.) Why don't other pills do this? I can't recall seeing cotton in any other pill bottle.

I can't say for sure, but I can make a few educated guesses as to why cotton may not be used:

-- The pills have a hard coating (like M&Ms) that prevents eroding.

-- The pills are gelatin capsules. The two halves of the shell prevent eroding.

-- The pills were packed tightly enough that rattling was minimized.

-- The pills were repackaged. The place I worked would sell in bulk--not just in jars of, say, 500 pills to be shipped to a pharmacy, but also in greater lots to be shipped to Big Chain Drugstore, which would repackage them as a house brand (say for ibuprofen). Maybe the repackager chooses not to use cotton, or maybe packs them tightly enough.

Or, cotton is used because the pills contain very little active ingredient. Amounts like 5 milligrams (a common dosage of diazepam) are nearly microscopic. That 5 mg diazepam tablet that you take is mostly inert ingredients, but it's big enough for you to handle. Anyway, with so little active ingredient, you don't want to take the chance of losing any of the active ingredient through erosion.

Compare this to, say, the 600 to 1000 mg of ASA commonly found in headache remedies. Lose a milligram or two, it won't really matter. Lose a little diazepam though, and you're not getting what your doctor prescribed.

Note that I'm using diazepam as an example only. I honestly cannot remember whether the diazepam tablets from the manufacturer I worked for were coated or not, or how they were packaged. But its common enough (you might know it better as Valium), and at 5 mg it certainly is a small dosage, so it works well in my example.