ACCESS TO PENICILLIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26416, 21 March 1947, Page 5

ACCESS TO PENICILLIN

DANGEROUS POSSIBILITIES RESTRICTIONS ADVOCATED Special Correspondent Rec. 8.30 p.m. LONDON, Mar. 20. A fear that unrestricted access to penicillin might do grave harm to the public health was expressed by Lord Listowel in the House of Lords when moving the second reading of the Penicillin Bill. This is designed to prevent penicillin or any similar substance being sold except on the orders of a doctor or veterinary surgeon. Lord Listowel said that scientists, including Sir Alexander Fleming, pointed out that if a person took small doses noxious germs in the system became immune tq the drug’s curative action. Those who acquired this immunity were likely to die from a renewed attack of the disease for which they had , taken small doses, and a man might infect his wife and children with penicillin-resistant germs. The Daily Telegraph, commenting on the Bill, points out that if the sale of penicillin were not controlled there was no doubt that it would be widely sold and lavishly used. The paper adds that the measure of control proposed will in no way hinder the use of the drug by those qualified to handle it, but will prevent the edge of the sharpest weapon against microbe infection being blunted by abuse.