§ Mr. Spellerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many cases of apparently permanent damage have been caused to National Health Service patients through the prescription and application of steroids.
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§ Sir George YoungThe statistics held centrally relating to NHS treatment do not provide the information requested. I very much regret that the figures provided in my hon. Friend's reply to my hon. Friend on 3 November were incomplete.
By February 1980 the Committee on Safety of Medicines had received 2,374 reports of suspected adverse reactions to corticosteroids of which 68 (excluding deaths) could clinically be described as "permanent".—[Vol. 991, c. 403–4.]