Nope, Nurofen tablets can't magically target certain pain

Get ready for some painful news. 

Despite what the maker of Nurofen would like you to believe, you can't cure specific types of pain with its range of pain-relief tablets. 

There is no science as yet that lets a tablet know to target period pain over back pain, or that you are suffering from a tension headache instead of a migraine. Shame.

The Australian Federal Court was so convinced about this that it fined Reckitt Benckiser, the British company that manufactures Nurofen, A$1.7 million for breaching consumer laws in a penalty hearing on Friday.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) was behind court action in December, which found all the Nurofen Specific Pain products contained the same active ingredient, Ibuprofen, and did exactly the same thing despite costing double the price of the standard range.

“In taking this enforcement action, the ACCC was particularly concerned that consumers had been misled into purchasing Nurofen Specific Pain Products, and paying more for those products, in the belief that each product was specifically designed for and effective in treating a particular type of pain, when this was not the case,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said in a statement on Friday. 

Yep, you could have been taking the cheap version all along. 

According to the ABC, Reckitt Benckiser argued that any rational person would know that pain medication can't target specific pain. The court, obviously, disagreed. We'll be the first to admit that our migraine did feel like it was being targeted by the drugs, and we're semi-rational. Seems it was targeting our entire body.

The ACCC had submitted a fine of A$6 million but the judge decided on the lesser amount due to the fact that the medication still treated a customer's pain. Reckitt Benckiser has also been ordered to take the misleading products off the shelf.

In hindsight, it was always too good to be true.

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