§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) pursuant to his reply of 21st July, if he will give further information about the concern which has been expressed that warning letters from the Committee on Safety of Medicines might sometimes be overlooked by doctors; who expressed concern; when they did so; what they said; and what reason they had for being concerned;
(2) whether he is considering other proposals besides that of marking envelopes with distinctive symbols to ensure that doctors read yellow warning notices;
(3) whether his Department, through the Committee of Safety on Medicines, accepts any responsibility for ensuring that drugs for which a yellow warning notice has been issued are not prescribed for the purpose for which the warning notice was given; and if they do, if he will give details of this responsibility.
§ Mr. MoyleThe possibility that warning letters from the Committee on Safety of Medicines might sometimes be overlooked by busy doctors was considered by the Committee's Adverse Reactions Sub-Committee in the context of a general discussion on communications with the professions in autumn 1977. It was known that many doctors routinely destroy unopened communications from pharmaceutical companies and, at a symposium in June 1977, a member of the audience had mentioned that letters from CSM had, on occasion, been found unopened in wastepaper baskets.
Consultations on a scheme to mark envelopes containing adverse reactions 252W material with a distinctive symbol are already in progress but discussion of the general issue and other proposals awaits a meeting between the representatives of the CSM and the BMA in September. I made clear to my hon. Friend in answers on 21st June and 21st July—[Vol. 952, c. 229–30; Vol. 954, c. 459–60]—that the decision whether or not to prescribe a product for a particular purpose is a matter for the professional judgment of the doctor treating the patient and therefore neither my Department nor the CSM can take responsibility for an individual doctor's therapeutic practice.
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether his Department investigated whether there were a great many prescriptions issued by doctors for pregnancy test drugs after the yellow warning notices had been issued by the Committee on Safety of Medicines.