Ingredients Of Animal Origin In Medicines Campaign A Success!

For some time we have been pursuing the issue of animal ingredients in medicine. A special thanks to Surinder Sharma, Head of Equalities NHS for facilitating our meetings with all the relevant groups. Vitamin K which has bovine bile and is administered to all new born babies will be hopefully available in a vegetarian version in the near future as a company is waiting to get a licence. We are further pursuing this issue with the NHS and the Royal Society of General Practioners. A special thanks to Vanessa Clarke for her crucial input.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain has sent the following memo to companies which produce medicines and other stakeholders.

The Department of Health has been in discussion with representatives of certain faiths and of societies representing vegetarian patients on the question of the use of ingredients of animal origin in medicinal products and potential problems associated with such use for these communities.

An article on this issue was included in the Pharmaceutical Journal. This can be accessed at:
http://www.pjonline.com/editorial/20070728/comment/spectrum.html

The Association did discuss this issue at a meeting with the Department of Health and representatives of the organisations representing the patients involved and assured those organisations that the Association recognised the genuine concerns of those patients. It was explained that there is a general trend for manufacturers to move away from the use in medicines of derivatives of animal products but that there were occasions where the nature of the product involved or quality or safety issues precluded the effective use of non-animal-derived ingredients.
While member companies are generally aware of the nature of the concerns of the type expressed in the discussions it was felt important that the Association remind them of extent of these concerns.

The purpose of this note is to bring the level of concern in this area to the attention of member companies and to encourage them to consider this issue when formulating new products or during the review process for existing formulations.

Where it is deemed necessary to include such materials it is strongly recommended that members should have in place an effective means of responding to enquiries from concerned patients or their representative organisations seeking information regarding the presence of such materials.
Visit www.medicines.org.uk for information on ingredients of your medicines

Sheena Shah keeps the vegetarian flag flying in Namibia
24 year old Sheena did Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge and spent over a year in Namibia. Apart from teaching, she also undertook voluntary work whilst she was out there. Though Namibians are very meat-eating, Sheena introduced many of them to the delights of vegetarian food. She is back in Namibia this summer, working with remote tribes (“the bushmen of Namibia”) and helping to preserve their dying languages. Sheena is doing a PHD in Linguistics at Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA. Sheena has proven that - wherever you are in the world - you do not have to compromise your ethical stand. Sheena’s parents, Bharat and Nila, can be proud of their daughter. Unlike some parents, they did not tell their daughter to eat meat because she was going so far away from home.