Sir
UMELCO
DRAFT SPEECH BY DR HON HENRIETTA IP, OBE, JP LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 30.7.86
Pharmacy and Poisons (Amendment) Bill 1986
This Bill serves to tighten control over the sale of
pharmaceutical products for the safety and benefit of our
public. It has received full support from the medical and
pharmaceutical profession. The LegCo ad hoc group formed to
scrutinize this Bill approves of it. I too would like to
extend my warm welcome to these much needed legislative
amendments.
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It must be confusing to the lay public why a Bill
should be so called
Pharmacy
and Poisons
Bill; two
apparent extremes of products, one to cure and another to kill. The simple explanation is that there is only a fine dividing line between the two. Namely, the same product can be both a drug and a poison. A drug given correctly and in the right dosage can cure but if not, can kill or maim.
are
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Examples
iron tablets apparently so benign, can kill with an
overdosage. Warfarin kills rats but cures human blood disease. Aspirin cures headache for one person, but precipitates asthma in another and haemolytic anaemia in 5% of Chinese male in Hong Kong. Thalidomide gives a good night sleep for some but given to a pregnant mother maims her unborn foetus. In essence, it is dangerous for the public to play doctors, friends to play pharmacists, and neighbours to play
dispensers.
Basically, we can divide drugs into 3 practical
categories.
UMELCO
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