WHICH? MEDICINE: INTRODUCTION

Nowadays good health is the expected norm, even a right. Illness is generally accompanied by the assumption that a medicine will ease the symptoms or effect a cure. In Britain the use of medicines is extensive, particularly by the growing population of people over 65, who receive almost half of all prescriptions.

The reasons people take so many medicines are complex: the desire to take something to make you feel better is deep-rooted, like the sense that eating will overcome hunger, and a prescription often seems the most satisfactory outcome of a consultation for both patient and doctor. The pressure to search for a medicinal cure for every problem, whether or not it is appropriate, is increased by the high media profile of drugs and vigorous marketing by manufacturers.

But how much do you know about the medicine you take? What is in it? How is it supposed to help you? How will it affect your body? Does it have any unwanted effects? If you are to participate effectively in your own health care, you need the answers to these questions and many more besides, but until recently only minimal information has been available to the consumer.

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