Unethical practices - drug industry

[Willem_Morrenhof]

In article <40tb7t$f46 at rover.ucs.ualberta.ca> purcell at ee.ualberta.ca (Kurt James Purcell) writes:
>From: purcell at ee.ualberta.ca (Kurt James Purcell)
>Subject: Re: Unethical practices - drug industry
>Date: 16 Aug 1995 17:51:57 GMT

>maikai at aol.com (MAIKAI) writes:

>>I also got copies of the drugs the last several years----shows the
>>dyazide, synthroid, premarin.  No remarks about medical history--but
>>pharmacist knew about the hypertension.  I think the pharmacy had lousy
>>record keeping.  The doc had the history right in front of him-----she had
>>switched to him a few months earlier, when her normal one
>>retired.

>     I'm not too sure of the laws in the US or the rest of the world, but in
>Canada, you have to keep a record of all the drugs dispensed from a pharmacy
>for each patient for two years.  If they had sloppy record keeping, they 
>should lose the pharmacy licence, as well as the pharmacists losing their
>personal licences to practice.  That's the whole idea of keeping records in 
>the first place - so you can spot drug-interactions and allergies that the
>physician may have missed.

>     She was on synthroid and had high blood pressure???  Both are contra-
>indicated on the packaging for any decongestant.  Both the pharmacist
>and the physician should have known this.  Even if they didn't know she had
>High Blood Pressure, the synthroid should have made them think twice before 
>giving it to her.  

>     As an aside here, I understand what decongestants can do to people.  
>My mother (who is 57) a few years ago had a very bad cold, so stopped at
>the pharmacy for a decongestant.  They gave her a sustained release 
>tab that was 240mg (it has since been taken off the market, as too 
>many people were having adverse reactions).  She was awake for 2 days, 
>it gave her such a buzz.  She was washing the bathroom ceiling at 3 in
>the morning because she was so peppy.  When she came down from it, she slept 
>for 2 days.  My brother in university had heard the rumor that if you took
>alot of these decongestants, you can stay up all night to study, so he did.
>I got a phone call at 2 am from him.. He couldn't stop sweating and shaking
>(he's also been drinking alot of coffee).  Had it gotten too bad, I guess 
>we would have had to take him to the hospital to be tranquilized.  Had either
>of them had high blood pressure, I would have been very concerned that they 
>might have had a stroke.  Ummmm.  why don't people follow the 
>instructions on the package??  They're not there to make the box look
>pretty.

>Michelle LaBrosse-Purcell
>B.Sc.(pharmacology)
>--
>purcell at nyquist.ee.ualberta.ca                            
>University of Alberta,                   
>Edmonton, Alberta.