85% Families Want Manufacturers to Display Side Effects of Medicines: LocalCircles Survey

At least 85% families want it to be mandatory for manufacturers to display the side effects of a medicine on the packaging or via a leaflet, a LocalCircles survey has found.

The survey received over 22,000 responses from citizens located in 341 districts of India. A total of 68% of the respondents were men, while 32% were women. At least 43% respondents were from tier 1, 32% from tier 2 and 25% were from tier 3, 4 and rural districts.

50% OR THEIR KIN EXPERIENCED SIDE EFFECTS OF MEDS PRESCRIBED BY DOCTORS IN PAST 5 YEARS

The first question in the survey asked respondents: “How many times has it happened in the last five years that someone in the family including yourself took medicine(s) and experienced side effects that the doctors prescribing did not make you/them aware of?”

In response, 52% respondents indicated that they or their family members have experienced such an ordeal. Of the 11,082 respondents, 34% indicated their family members have had such an experience once or twice in the past five years. Among the remaining, 6% shared that such incidents had happened more than 10 times in the past five years; 3% indicated 6-9 times; 9% stated 3-5 times.

In all, only 30% shared that they had not faced such an experience, while 18% were unsure.

MANDATORY DISCLOSURE OF SIDE EFFECTS

The next question was: “Do you think it should be mandatory for medicine manufacturers to disclose the main side effects on the packaging / via a leaflet along with it?”

An overwhelming majority of 85% said, “Yes, absolutely.” Among the 11,096 respondents, 11% felt such a measure is not practical, another 4% felt it was not needed.

The survey was conducted via LocalCircles platform and all participants were validated citizens who had to be registered with LocalCircles to participate in this survey. LocalCircles, is a community social media platform which enables citizens and small businesses to escalate issues for policy and enforcement interventions and enables the government to make policies that are citizen- and small business-centric.