From Mr A. E. Humfress, MRPharmS
SIR,-May I support the letter from Mr Thomson (PJ, July 15, p90) in suggesting that the editor of The Pharmaceutical Journal should not let all correspondents express their views, regardless of what these are. Several of the letters recently published on breeding should have been rejected.
Of course, serious discussions of sociological or political issues relating to pharmacy and medicine are acceptable but, for instance, the letter from Miss Taylor (PJ, July 22, p128) was a rant of anecdote, half-truths and prejudice. To mention just one point, in a nation in which the top 50 per cent most wealthy own well over 90 per cent of the wealth, telling many of the population to buy a private pension is equivalent to telling those without bread to eat cake.
The views of Miss Taylor and others have something in common with the eugenicists at the turn of the century who thought that overbreeding of the feckless poor was a threat to civilisation. I am ashamed that such letters were allowed to appear in the journal representative of the pharmacy profession.
E. Humfress
London NW3