Does the NHS have any obligation to offer me vegetarian versions of prescription drugs?

[BroccoliSpears]

Anyone know?

You could always pierce the capsules and pop liquid medicine in mouth or mix in a drink

so then you could discard the gelatine capsule

So would I be right in thinking that the vast majority of vegetarians make exceptions when it comes to prescription drugs? Even if they do so unwittingly.

Most supplements in a gelatine capsule come in potato starch capsules too. Expensive.

YOu do have to be careful if you do this, and it would be advisable to check with your pharmacist.

Some tablets are enteric coated, so they pass through the stomach and are released further down the GI tract where they are better absorbed/ prevents damage to the lining of the stomach.

Some can be mildly anesthetic (I'm thinking of the old style anti depressants) and these can make your tongue numb and risk burning it if you drink the medicine with a hot drink.

Some just taste very, very bitter! which is why they are put into capsules in the first place.

And some are slow release mechanisms, which could be very dangerous if it all got into your system at once.

Most would be fine, but it is wise to check first

interesting thread

oh when I was vegan I had vit B 12 deficiency and the tablets they prescribed me contained lactose

part of the reason for the pig/bovine Insulin options is the relativly high incidence of Diabetes in the indian sub continent BTW

I used to spend ages on the phone to out Indian office trying to get UK equivalent brands of Insulin for people who'd come to the UK and run out of their prescription.

oooh, a letter from the chief rabbi... i can relax now...

basically it said that the religious imperative was to get healthy, and not to worry about the Kosher-ness of the drugs. It specifically mentioned that the presence of starches was not as issue in the run up to Passover

Thank you for all this MB - you're obv very knowledgable on the subject and it's interesting.

I was impressed by the calm rationality of it

Back In the days of parchment and quills I used to work in Medical information for a couple of different drug companies. This sort of thing was all grist to our mill!

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all drugs that are licenced for use in the UK have to be tested on animals.

Without the safety information provided by this phase of testing, they would not be allowed to go on to the next step, which is testing the drug on healthy volunteers (phase 1)

If all goes well with that it is tested (dose ranging) on volunteers how have the disease it will be used to treat.

If all goes well with that it will go into Phase 3 trials, where lots more people take the drug as part of a (normally) double blind clinical trial. The drug will have been tested on a few thousand people at this stage. PG women and children, and often the elderly don't do this bit. The drug then goes to Phase 4, when it is used by the general public (if prescribed naturally) but with added safety precautions, if you've ever had a drug with a black triangle on the box, this is a phase 4 drug.

the company then puts together a huge safety profile and it goes off to the government.

It takes many many years of testing to get the drug onto the ,market and costs around £1000 million

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Nope.

The amount of testing rose , dramatically, after the awfulness of the Thalidomide case.

Prior to that relatively few animal tests were required. Nowadays the effect of Thalidomide would be detected on the animal trials that the regulatory authorities insist upon. Drugs cannot be tested on PG women, but they are tested on PG animals, and the possible effect on the developing foetus is monitored.

Obviously this isn't 100% effective as differences do exist between animals and humans, however 9/10 drugs never get into humans because they are found to be too toxic at the animal testing phase.

Ibuprofen went to market in the 1960s with a safety document of around 400 pages. A drug going to market now needs a massive lorry to transport the huge amount of paper work that it needs to get clearance to go to market.

Again, not 100% perfect, but far safer than it used to be

MB, you are like, well clevah !

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bs i always ask for non gelatine versions

i aslo get vegetarian iron

it was a doctor that advised me oddly

Re:religious point. The Jewish religion (and I imagine the muslim religion from what I have read of it)can be surprisingly pragmatic when it comes to this sort of issue - that health/saving life takes priority over the dietary laws.