Letters: Drug regulation

I fully agree with the points raised in "Knee-jerk reaction" (March 18). It is a well-known fact that combination drugs have been in the market for quite some time now, and that people have been using them extensively and benefitting from them greatly, too. How come the government woke up now on the issue, when these medicines have proven to be effective in their fields? Has any test been carried out to prove that these are harmful? If yes, why were such tests not done before permission was given to companies to manufacture the drugs in question?

While I appreciate the government's eagerness to protect the common man from the ill-effects of extensive use of non-prescription medicines (over-the-counter drugs), I wonder why there is no regulation in place to check the veracity of the claims made by the manufacturers before they carry out commercial production. In my opinion, all over-the-counter medicines should be banned and all pharmaceutical products should be sold only on prescriptions from authorised practitioners. While this may put some financial burden on the ordinary people, they should know that it is in their own interest in the long run.

B C Unnikrishnan Nair, Alappuzha

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