§ Mr. Geoffrey Lloydasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will, in consultation with the medical and pharmaceutical professions, investigate the desirability of causing all forms of pharmaceutical preparations sold to the public to be marked with a date beyond which such preparations would no longer be safe to use and should therefore be destroyed.
§ Mr. AlisonIt would not be appropriate to impose a requirement of this kind generally on manufacturers or vendors of medicinal products because of the varied stability of such products and differing conditions in which they may be stored and used. Regulations made under46W the Therapeutic Substances Act, 1956, already require certain biological products that are particularly liable to deterioration to be labelled with the date of manufacture or the date up to which the product, if kept in suitable conditions, may be expected to retain a potency above the prescribed limits. Under the licensing arrangements of the Medicines Act it will be possible to make labelling requirements of this kind where appropriate to the particular medicinal product.