Is the Society's position on returned medicines evidence-based?

摘要

Priya Sejpal gives the official Royal Pharmaceutical Society justification of its Code of Ethics prohibition on using returned medicines for humanitarian use in Africa (PJ,3 March p249).The explanation given is that medicines may have been kept at home "near a radiator or in moist conditions"and may therefore "no longer be efficacious or stable".Might I suggest that this is not a matter for a code of ethics,but rather a technical issue.For all such science-based assertions one would expect the Society would offer an evidence-based opinion.In fact the minimum regulatory requirements for drug stability testing are six months at 40C with 75 per cent humidity,which is far in excess of household conditions.