english.prescrire.org > Spotlight > Archives : 2007 > Self-medication: a proposal that benefits pharmaceutical companies rather than patients

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Self-medication: a proposal that benefits pharmaceutical companies rather than patients

In France, there are a growing number of initiatives to "open up" the self-medication market. Patients’ real needs are not the main consideration.

In recent years there have been a number of European and French initiatives to expand self-medication, in other words, to make it possible for patients to buy drugs over the counter.

There is nothing wrong with patients becoming independent of health professionals – as long as this independence is genuinely in their best interests. But the official French list of drugs considered suitable for self-medication includes drugs which are not the best choice in their therapeutic category (cimetidine), or have an unfavourable benefit-risk balance, such as pseudoephedrine.

For drugs that will no longer be reimbursed by French social security because they offer insufficient clinical benefits, the government decided in 2005 to allow direct-to-consumer advertising beginning six months before the drugs are de-listed, so that the manufacturers will not completely lose their market.

The report on self-medication commissioned by the Health Minister and published in January 2007 recommends giving patients direct access to self-medication drugs in pharmacies (self-service), thus eliminating pharmacists from any potential healthcare role (advice, etc.), other than dispensing medication.

All these factors indicate that current plans to extend self-medication are not designed for the benefit of patients, but for that of the pharmaceutical industry.

©Prescrire May 2007

Source: "Automédication : un projet au service des firmes, mais pas des patients" Rev Prescrire 2007 ; 27 (283) : 340-341.

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