Pharmaceutical Society calls for action on out-of-date medications

A ‘Medical Journal of Australia’ (MJA) article stating that product information (PI) on thyroid medications may be dangerously out of date points to the potential for the problem being more widespread, the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) has warned.

“As an organisation concerned about consumers’ safe use of medicines, the Society welcomes discussions between the Therapeutic Goods Administration and drug company sponsors that may identify whether the problem is more widespread,” national vice-president, Debbie Rigby, has said .
“We would hope these discussions would move on to developing a consistent system of updating. Health professionals rely on the official sponsor-produced PI, and quite reasonably should be able to do so,” she says.

“The MJA article highlights the need to recognise the limitations of official PI and the issues caused by relying on only one source of information.

“An additional issue is that Consumer Medicine Information [CMI] – which is required to be provided to consumers in a range of circumstances – is written to be consistent with the PI.

“If the official PI is out of date, this flows on directly to consumers who are being supplied with CMI brochures that are out of date.

“In addition, official PI is one of the most common forms of medicines information available on the Internet and this, too, flows directly to consumers who are seeking more detail on the medicines they have been prescribed.”

The PSA was among a range of stakeholders which commented on a 2005 TGA discussion paper dealing with medicines information and the Society wants to see the outcomes of this review.

“Among organisations – such as PSA – that provide information and education to health professionals it is standard practice for such information to be reviewed every two years. PSA would suggest that this might be a suitable timeframe for reviews of PI,” she said.