How is it they have made medicines for most illnesses to cure or at least lessen the symptoms yet they cannot make them taste good. Especially the ones meant for kids.

Question

Looking at you Augmentin and Tamiflu.

In: 0

Answer 1

It’s because when formulating medications it’s not only the active ingredient (drug) we consider when making a dosage form, we also take into consideration excipients – pharmacologically inactive (no effect on the body), but has a role in making your dosage form (tablet, capsule, suspension, syrup etc.)

Now the more excipients you add into the formulation (sweeteners, colorants, flavorants, preservatives) the higher the chance that the ingredients in your formulation will not play nice with each other (each ingredient has a chance to have a chemical reaction with other ingredients). The higher the chance that your formulation will not be stable (spoils/breaks down easily) or be effective (drug doesn’t perform as expected)

TLDR – more ingredients more chance of being unstable hence more chance of being unusable.

If you have problems with taking your medications please consult your pharmacist, they can even recompound your medication into something more palatable if need be