HC Deb 23 July 1986 vol 102 cc307-8W
Mr. Ashley

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) pursuant to his answer, Official Report, 14 July, if he will list the five drugs which have had the largest cumulative number of adverse reaction reports over the last six months; and if he will indicate which of these have resulted in deaths possibly associated with the drug;

(2) pursuant to the answer, Official Report, 14 July, column 422, of the eight drugs whose licences or certificates were withdrawn, how many had (a) been on the market for over five years and (b) had at some time over 1 million prescriptions issued for them in one year; and, for the drugs falling into either of these two categories, how many months the committee spent in evaluating safety before the decision was taken to revoke the licence or certificate.

Mr. Hayhoe

I shall let the right hon. Member have replies as soon as possible.

Mr. Ashley

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services, pursuant to the answers of 14 July, Official Report, column 422, if he will reconcile his statement that the Committee on Safety of Medicines is at present actively assessing the safety of seven drugs which had over one million prescriptions issued for them in 1984 with his statement that of the 14 drugs whose safety has been discussed by the Committee on Safety of Medicines in the last year, only one had had over 1 million prescriptions issued and another one had had over 2 million issued, with the figures for number of prescriptions of the other drugs being less than one million or not available.

Mr. Hayhoe

The two sets of information given in my reply to the right hon. Member on 14 July at columns421–22, related to separate questions about different time periods.

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