Response to 'Returned medicines: waste or a wasted opportunity?' [Letter]

Annear, Bethany Marie, Sinclair, Kate and Robbe, Iain J 2008. Response to 'Returned medicines: waste or a wasted opportunity?' [Letter]. Journal of Public Health 30 (2) , p. 209. 10.1093/pubmed/fdn006

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Abstract

The study by Mackridge and Marriott1 addresses an important Public Health issue regarding the possible use of unused medicines. The authors can be congratulated for their investigation of this under-studied topic in the UK, in which there appears to be extensive waste occurring with unused medicines. However, we suggest that there are two particular notes of caution that should be highlighted. First, the sample study represented the population characteristics of the UK regarding age and sex but due to the location of the study, a larger proportion of ethnic minority individuals, about 20%, were involved compared to that in the UK population, 7.9% in 2001.2 This limits the generalizability of the results to the UK, a point that was not raised in the paper. Secondly, we consider that the potential financial benefits to be gained by reusing returned medicines should be more thoroughly investigated before such optimistic conclusions may be drawn. Of the £75 million of potential value from returned medicines, the study identifies ∼25%, about £18 million, that could be reused. However, the costs of additional protection for medicines and stability testing of returned medicines would reduce this figure. As their study occurred in the absence of extra publicity or promotions to encourage the return of unused medicines, the authors appropriately identify that there is scope for more returned medicines to be of a suitable standard for reuse. This study is therefore an excellent initiating tool for further research that could assess the likely impact of increased publicity. Future research could investigate in detail the reasons for the return of medicines including gathering age-specific data to further direct this effort.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine
Subjects:	R Medicine > R Medicine (General) R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	1741-3842
Last Modified:	19 Mar 2016 22:49
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/28271

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