From Mr A. Phillips, MRPharmS
SIR,—I read with some incredulity of Lloyds’s decision to withdraw products containing phenylpropanolamine (PJ, November 11, p709). I was under the (mistaken?) impression that the news about phenylpropanolamine causing strokes was already accepted by the vast majority of health care professionals. I certainly have avoided selling any of the phenylpropanolamine-containing products to anyone with hypertension or factors predisposing them to strokes. Have Lloyds pharmacies not been doing the same? And if they have, what is the reason for withdrawing products which, when used appropriately, are no more dangerous than the ones sold in garages and corner shops? I look forward to reading in the press of Lloyds’s withdrawal of ibuprofen due to its dangers in asthmatics and maybe even paracetamol due to its liver-damaging properties. If we are to expect to be allowed to sell potent medicines over the counter is it not also time that we should be able to be relied upon to sell products with the appropriate advice?
Alun Phillips
Warrington, Cheshire