I'm looking for a country which is stricter than the US about allowing artificial dyes in pills. Someone suggested that might be the UK. Here such dyes are referred to by so-called F D & C numbers, i.e., food, drug, and cosmetics. No inane replies, please.
UK Fans, Artifical Colors Allowed in Medicine?
- Thread starter Bartholomew Diogenes
- Start date
The UK has requirements that medication is colour coded too. The individual colourings can sometimes vary depending on manufacturer of the drug but they are regulated.
There are probably guides to the specific amount of dye used, it's contents and the relevant numbering of them online.
There are probably guides to the specific amount of dye used, it's contents and the relevant numbering of them online.
Some people are allergic to specific E series dyes and it can cause some unfortunate problems.
Artificial dyes, obviously, would be inactive ingredients in pills. I could see someone being allergic to them but I'm not sure how you'd track such a thing considering the vast sources from which dyes come from further depending on if it was a powdered dye, liquid dye, gel dye, etc. And, yeah, with pills I'd assume using dyes helps to make pills more identifiable and distinct.
As two or three posts in this thread have mentioned, it's about the allergic reaction some of these dyes cause, which affect a lot of people.
That's fair enough. I agree that packaging should mention any highly allergenic ingredients.
Well the medication does list in the little leaflet provided, any dyes and colour agents used in the coating/tablet etc. But it's up to the patient to know what dyes they in particular are allergic to and read the leaflet to see if it's there.
AFAIK, all dyes used in medication here undergo the same standards-testing as the medications themselves. Exceptions are probably made for ones that have been around for yonks with no reported adverse reactions.
Mind you, I just sign prescriptions; I don't make the drugs, so you'd get a more knowledgeable answer from an R&D pharmacologist if there's one here. Actually you'd get a more knowledgeable answer from his legal department, but you get the idea...
Mind you, I just sign prescriptions; I don't make the drugs, so you'd get a more knowledgeable answer from an R&D pharmacologist if there's one here. Actually you'd get a more knowledgeable answer from his legal department, but you get the idea...
Holdfast, if you would look at an insert for some colored medicine, say, levothyroxine and see if any of the inactive ingredients are colors and if so which one(s), I would appreciate it. In the meantime I've e-mailed DG SANCO, and the preliminary word I have is that colors are more restricted in the EU. Your avatar is Mary Poppins, right? Saw it at Radio City Musichall when it came out.
I would say it would be more accurate to say a small minority of people could have an allergic reaction to a specific dye.
Though when you are creating a product you make sure it can be used by virtually everybody.
DG SANCO has not yet answered, and the FDA cited a different agency as its counterpart in the EU. I've asked to speak to the person making that claim.
Holdfast, DG SANCO and I corresponded and I wrote agencies in Sweden and Norway but they haven't answered. It would help if you answered my original question if you can, especially as you are a mod. I am rather sick and it's near impossible to get PROPER care timely, if at all.
Seriously, you need to talk to a pharmacist. Someone who actually sees meds regularly and has to know how they're made, rather than just what effect their active ingredients have. I don't actually see that many pills these days, and when I do, it's usually checking how many empty space there are in the blister pack to see how non-concordant someone's been with their prescription rather than checking the ingredient list!
But almost every single coloured tablet is coloured as the result of a colouring agent (either from the vehicle itself or added to it) rather than the active ingredient as the amount of active ingredient in any given tablet is usually very small in relation to the overall weight of the tablet. Whether the agent is artificial or natural, and exactly what it is, and how it's been tested, those are questions for pharmacists, sorry.
And I'm afraid my modding obligations don't extend beyond the narrow confines of the TNG forum into my professional life.
But almost every single coloured tablet is coloured as the result of a colouring agent (either from the vehicle itself or added to it) rather than the active ingredient as the amount of active ingredient in any given tablet is usually very small in relation to the overall weight of the tablet. Whether the agent is artificial or natural, and exactly what it is, and how it's been tested, those are questions for pharmacists, sorry.
And I'm afraid my modding obligations don't extend beyond the narrow confines of the TNG forum into my professional life.
Bartholomew, you can see a copy of the official FDA medication guide that comes with every levothyroxine stock bottle here. The inactive ingredients listing has a table that contains all of the color dyes for each respective tablet strength.
Holdfast's suggestion to speak to a pharmacist is the absolute best advice in this thread. Waiting for a reply from a drug manufacturer, as you're currently doing and are finding out, is going to take considerable time, if you ever receive a reply at all. Don't be too surprised if it takes a pharmacist several minutes to find additional information by looking at a medication guide; the things are damn difficult to read given the tiny print (not to mention occasionally a pain in the ass to fold back together...).
Holdfast's suggestion to speak to a pharmacist is the absolute best advice in this thread. Waiting for a reply from a drug manufacturer, as you're currently doing and are finding out, is going to take considerable time, if you ever receive a reply at all. Don't be too surprised if it takes a pharmacist several minutes to find additional information by looking at a medication guide; the things are damn difficult to read given the tiny print (not to mention occasionally a pain in the ass to fold back together...).
