§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is his estimate of the numbers of deaths each year due to the effects of all anti-arthritic drugs.
§ Mr. Hayhoe[pursuant to his reply, 30 January 1986, c. 620]: Information on deaths attributed to medicinal products is available from death certificates, from reports of adverse reactions and from professional reports based on original research. However, none of these sources provides data on which to base the estimate requested by the right hon. Member.
I am advised that death certificates are a poor indicator of deaths related to medicinal products as the cause of death is usually given as a medical condition, not the effects of the medicine. Adverse reaction reports to the Committee on Safety of Medicines provide data on drug-related deaths in the United Kingdom, but for two important reasons they cannot be used to estimate total deaths caused by medicines. First, adverse reaction reports are reports of associations and do not necessarily indicate a causal relationship between the medicine and reaction. Second, the committee acknowledges that there is underreporting of adverse reactions but the extent of this is not known.
I am not aware of any published professional research which provides an estimate of deaths caused by all groups of drugs used to treat or alleviate the symptoms of arthritis. However, I understand that, studies, made in the Nottingham area, lead to estimates that deaths from upper gastro-intestinal bleeding caused by one of the groups, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (but not including aspirin), may amount to over 200 a year in the United Kingdom.
The Committee on Safety of Medicines is currently undertaking a further special review of available evidence on the safety of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs including the Nottingham study.