From Mr P. D. Burgess, MRPharmS
SIR,—I have the totally opposite point of view to Mr Freedman and feel I must reply to his letter (PJ, September 4, p349).
The colouring of generic packs could be used to distinguish the different medicines. It is simply a matter of good design. Instead of advocating the use of no colour I think we should be encouraging generics manufacturers to use more. Indeed, some already do, for example Generics UK uses pale green, dark green, black and white backgrounds and then purple, red or blue to highlight strength differences. Instead of using all those colours to highlight their company they could easily be used in designs that made it very difficult for pharmacists, spouses or patients to mistake, for example, 28 oxytetracycline 250mg for 56 oxybutynin 2.5mg, as APS has managed with its bad design. Utilising multiple colours, designs (eg, blocks of colour in circles, squares, rectangles) and different sizes of boxes, it would be very easy to accommodate all generics and more.
I agree with Mr Freedman on one point — it would be excellent if the use of colours could be standardised, just as it has been with warfarin.
Surely, generics manufacturers using just one colour such as pale blue is already the equivalent of using black and white so Mr Freedman already has his wish of forcing us to read each package. Conversely, with a small application of good design, it would be so easy to distinguish packs that had been put in the wrong drawer. I remain convinced that safety could be improved with more colour usage on packs instead of the alternative usage of few colours or no colour.
Paul Burgess
Kingston, Surrey