From Mr N. Freedman, MRPharmS
SIR,—The colouring of patient packs for generic pharmaceuticals can only lead to error, at both pharmacist and patient levels. Leaving aside the colour blindness of a significant proportion of users, the number of significantly different available colours is too few to accommodate the variety of generic preparations. The use of colours would have to be standardised so that all generics from different companies conformed to the standard. It is many years now that generic injectable products have not been in coloured packs, forcing users to read the label and probably leading to a reduction of errors.
I believe that safety would best be served by requiring all generic packs to be black printing on white background, thus removing the possibility of duplication of colours and so the mistake made by your correspondent’s wife (PJ, August 28, p320).
Norman Freedman
Northwood