The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 265 No 7108 p192
August 5, 2000 Letters

Veterinary medicines

Personal thoughts

From Mr D. W. M. Davidson, FRPharmS

SIR,-In response to the recent series of letters in The Journal about animal medicines (PJ, July 22, p130 [from Mr Cook and Dr Dawson]), may I, as a member for many years of the former Agricultural and Veterinary Pharmacists Group committee and its chairman for 13 years, make the following observations.
I believe the argument is over the reasons for a two- or three-tier system but is muddied by the diverse range of animal medicines available.
It is the products which can be moved from prescription-only to a lesser category but still be controlled in the interests of safety, economy and animal welfare which is important.
There is a place for all parties:

• Those which require a veterinary intervention or personal involvement based on his intensive training (ie, POM)
• Those which require university standard training in medicines management and thus could be a subdivision of POM, eg, POM(E) as in Ireland
• The middle category PML which encompasses a broad range (more than present) and is available from registered and controlled premises (ie, the merchants who have training as part of their requirements)
• Then GSL, which should be harmless but effective products, mainly not usable in the food chain and not requiring recall as there would no list of premises selling them

In this age of increased access to knowledge it is essential that those taking part in the medicines field are trained to an appropriate standard to be able correctly to interpret the information on medicines now being made available.
These comments are entirely my personal thoughts after a lifetime involvement in the field.

Douglas Davidson
Blairgowrie, Perthshire