Book gives medications the full treatment

Know Your Medicine, which was published yesterday, is the first guide to non-prescription medicines available in the Republic.

While the use of over-the-counter [OTC] medication is lower here than in other EU countries, it is on the increase. In the UK, OTC use as a percentage of total medication sales is 23 per cent compared with an EU average of 14 per cent.

Published by Eireann Publications, the book is edited by Dr Graham Shaw, Professor of Pharmacology at Trinity College Dublin.

He believes the variety of non-prescription medicines on sale in this State can be bewildering.

"I hope that the publication of this book will help people to make an informed choice when they seek over-the-counter medication", he said at the book's launch in Dublin.

Is the book of real value to the Irish consumer? The answer has to be yes, on a number of fronts.

The variety of OTC medicines on the market is impossible even for health professionals to keep up with. For consumer and health advisor alike detailed information on the active ingredients of such medication will be invaluable.

For example, how many of us can say we are certain of the ingredients of "flu" remedies and in particular whether we might be exceeding the recommended dose of paracetamol when taking more than one OTC preparation ? With this book as a household reference, such a potentially fatal error can be avoided.

The section on pain relief also details the latest paracetamol packaging guidelines. Dr Shaw explains the effects of accidental paracetamol poisoning in some detail.

Recent market research has shown 46 per cent of the population believe you can give children aspirin, which because of the suspected association between aspirin and a disorder called Reyes Syndrome, could result in serious, medication-induced illness.

The same research showed 40 per cent of people would consider taking aspirin for stomach pain. Again the new book clearly warns against this because of aspirin's principal side effect - the risk of bleeding within the stomach and intestine.

Know Your Medicine is not a substitute for consulting your GP or community pharmacist, but as a valuable information and education tool, it should ensure more appropriate self-medicating by Irish consumers.