If you have the flu in the Bay Area near San Francisco, Calif., good luck getting cough syrup! Pharmacies are rationing Promethazine, a prescription cough syrup with codeine, and many folks will only get half of their prescribed dosage, according to the CBS affiliate in the San Francisco area, KPIX5.
"It seems like all of San Francisco is sick," Dr. Paul Abramson of My Medical Group told KPIX 5. "It's certainly very unusual that a generic medication like codeine with cough syrup would run out, but it doesn't surprise me."
Abramson blames the economy. "There's not a lot of incentive for generic manufacturers to keep large stocks of reserves of medications, so they're cutting it a lot closer so when there's a big surge in demand, things just run out," he told KPIX5.
Southern California is reportedly facing the same supply scarcity.
