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Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
July 15, 2013
I was shocked to read that a lady was having the wrong meds because her pharmacist had made an error, reading a similar named prescription drug for a common painkiller.
Not because errors cannot happen but because it is a really scary scenario and we contribute to it. As patients we are bad enough in that we take advice from friends over a cup of coffee and then buy that recommended medicine. We never take the pamphlet that comes with it seriously because it is only for legal purposes and we don’t know the ramifications.
Not just that but we don’t even care to check it out with our doctor. Also, private docs are now no longer on speed dial. Everything is an appointment. And who has the time for that.
A very powerful film called Side Effects has just been released and it underscores the casual way we tend to grasp at any uninformed advisory and go for it never realizing there can be tremendous long-term and short-term problems arising from the wrong meds or because one interacts adversely with the other.
The more stringent the prescription rules and the dispensation of medicaments the more we seem determined as the public to give anything a try.
Go look at your medicine cabinet and the half used pills and capsules and even so called health supplements. Do you even know if they are good for you? Not really, so and so said they were excellent and so you bought into it. Not good enough.
With copycat drugs and meds on the market or available cheap in the home countries where the laws are not so strict you could be having chalk tablets so never try to save money on the quality.
But, for now, just sharing a morning thought; clean out your medicine cabinet and stop experimenting…your friends may be well meaning but they are not doctors.
And meds do have side effects.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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