Empowering medicine users with more information
As I mentioned last last year - some good news for consumers. Be it for health reasons, in support of religious beliefs or due to allergies and sensitivities, knowing exactly what is in a medicine can be very important to some individuals.
If you’ve not looked at an ARTG listing in the last few days, I urge you to do so. Now anyone can see the excipient Ingredients in medicines!
Does this medicine contain gluten? Does it contain benzoates? Does it have sugars? What are the fragrances and preservatives used? Supporting better-informed choices about products, and accessibility to information that consumers have been asking for.
Active ingredients are responsible for medicinal effects. However, medicines also include other ingredients used, for example, as colours, fillers and preservatives. These are known as inactive ingredients or excipients. The TGA website now has more information about the ingredients in your medicines - simply search the ARTG listing, scroll all the way to the bottom, and in tiny non-user friendly text you will find most of the ingredients. Obviously some work needs to be done on making this more legible but one step at a time….
