Prescriptions needed for ‘suspect’ drugs

By a Staff Reporter

COLD cures containing a substance linked to strokes in hundreds of young American women will only be available with a prescription, the Drug Council ruled yesterday.

The Drug Council met yesterday to discuss the sale of over-the-counter drugs sold in Cyprus containing the compound phenylpropanolamine, which are used to help unblock congestion associated with colds, flu and allergies.

The council will today publish the names of nine over-the-counter remedies that are currently available on the island. “We are identifying the drugs and in a few days we will ban their purchase without a doctor’s prescription,” Symeon Matsis, member of the Drug Council told the Cyprus Mail.

But Matsis played down fears about the medicines posing a threat to health saying: “There is not much to worry about because the nine drugs are suspected of causing stroke to people taking them in combination with other medicines or in double doses to lose weight.

In Cyprus they are not known to be used for that. If they are taken for the right reasons at the correct dose and if a doctor decides it is all right for a particular patient to take them then they should not pose a threat to health.”

The move by the Drug Council is a u-turn on a decision taken last month when a unanimous vote was taken not to halt the pharmacy sale of the drugs. Cold cures containing the compound include Day Nurse, Benylin Day & Night, Contac 400 and Vicks Coldcure.

Matsis said the Council would wait for the response of other medical associations in Europe and America to decide on further action, such as to withdraw the drugs from the market. Drug safety experts in the UK met yesterday to discuss whether the cold remedies should be withdrawn from sale. But the Committee on Safety of Medicines may delay its decision until it has had more time to look at the evidence.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.