As you inch toward the proverbial three score and ten years, you begin to pay closer attention to the prescription and off-the counter drugs that have become a part of your daily regimen, particularly their advertised side effects.
When the drug comes packaged with the relevant literature in several languages that usually include English, you get to know the possible side effects and to decide whether taking the drug is worth the risks. More on this point later.
But in Nigeria, drugs often come packaged with instructions in every language except English –French, German, Chinese, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Turkish, Serbo-Croat, Korean, Sanskrit, and what have you. The friendly neighbourhood pharmacist who may have recommended the drug can tell you the dosage, but that is about all the help he or she can render.
Do something about this, NAFDAC. In the interest of public health and safety, insist that English must be one of the languages in which instructions and information on drug imports are written. Allow several months for compliance. Thereafter, punish those in default.
Trifling as that task might seem compared to the urgent challenge of keeping out of circulation fake, expired and under-performing drugs comprising 70 percent of the market, according to informed sources, it would be a significant step forward.
Even when all regulations are in place and are duly enforced, you still have to decide whether the drug is worth the risk. This is because many the drugs usually prescribed for the afflictions of persons in this age group often have possible side effects that may be even more alarming than the affliction itself.
Consider, first, a common prescription drug for treating high blood pressure.
Ordinary side effects include dehydration, which may result in confusion, fast or irregular heartbeat, severe dizziness, or seizures. More serious side effects include non-stop nausea, abdominal pain, yellowing skin, fever, chills, signs of kidney problems, pain in the joints, persistent sore throat, and easy bleeding.
Consider next the medication for a condition that causes blotches on the skin, discolours the nails, and makes it difficult to use fingers and joints for common, everyday tasks. Side effects include, but are not limited to, feeling faint, swelling in the face, lips, mouth, tongue or throat, trouble breathing or throat tightness, and skin rash.
Consider as well a prescription drug used in the treatment of various kinds of arthritis. Possible side effects include tuberculosis and infections caused by viruses or fungi, muscle aches, numbness, problems with vision, weakness in arms and legs, decrease in blood cells that help fight infectious diseases or stop bleeding, heart failure, liver failure, and cancer.
Consider, finally, prescription drugs that have suicidal thinking as a side effect. One drug used in the treatment of asthma belongs in that category. So does another, used to help adults quit smoking.
The literature on all of them adds helpfully that what you are reading is only a summary of possible side effects and that you should consult your doctor or pharmacist if you notice others not listed.
The consolation in all this is that the side effects were for the most part observed in an insignificant number of clinical trials. Still, a chance is a chance. One chance in a googol (the figure 1 followed by 100 zeros) might seem comfortingly nebulous, but it is a chance nevertheless.
The hope must be that the time never comes when a patient faces the stark and urgent choice of continuing to live with a disabling condition or embarking on a cure that may be worse than the disease.
Re: With March on my mind
A grave omission . . .
How could I have omitted Chief ‘Folake “The Lady SAN” Solanke, who turned 85 on March 29, from the “children of March” (the phrase is Niyi Osundare’s) whom I sketched last week?
Chief Solanke is a towering public figure in Nigeria, widely admired for her formidable forensic skills, her distinguished public service, her compelling presence, her poised, regal bearing, her impeccable grooming, her unfailing graciousness, and, of course, her exquisite tailoring.
Chief Solanke earned a special BA in Latin and Mathematics from the University of Durham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1954 and followed it up with a Diploma in Education. She taught high school Latin and Mathematics before returning to Nigeria. Six years later, she was back in the UK, to study at Grays Inn, London, completing the programme in two years.
She is a woman of many firsts — first woman to set up her own law firm, first to chair the old Western Nigeria Television Service, first female commissioner in former Western State (she held the portfolio of Establishments and Training), and the first to take Silk.
It was my fortune to chaperon her when she came to Lagos with her husband, the distinguished surgeon, Professor Toriola Solanke, to chair the 1991 Guardian Lecture presented by Ali Mazrui, the multiperspectival scholar of global renown, until his death in 2014 the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at the Centre for Global Cultural Studies, University of Binghamton, Binghamton, in upstate New York.
She presided over the proceedings with grace and finesse, but with firmness when the situation warranted it. Since then she and Professor Toriola, unfortunately no longer with us, always received me with their accustomed warmth and graciousness whenever our paths crossed.
When Chief Solanke was elected first African president of Zonta International, a global service organisation devoted to advancing the status of women, I wrote to congratulate her on the distinction.
A week later, my letter came back, with a handwritten note from Chief Solanke thanking me ever so graciously for the spirit behind it but pointing out that what it said was clearly not what I meant, and would I kindly withdraw and replace it with another that reflected what I had meant to say?
I was shattered.
“The distinction could have gone to a worthier person,” the letter said in cold print.
In my handwritten draft, the particular sentence read “The distinction could not have gone to a worthier person.” My secretary had in an uncharacteristic lapse omitted the critical word “not” and inadvertently turned a congratulatory message into a gross libel. And I had signed off on the typescript without reviewing it.
The lesson lives with me to this day.
. . . And a correspondent remembers
Your article “With March on my mind” ignored a particular feminine personality Mariam Abacha with whom I share the March 4 birthday. She will be remembered as a lady to whom Gen Oladipo Diya carried a big greeting card in one of the intriguing Aso Rock days of the Abacha years.
One of my two daughters turned to me and said, “Dad, while you and others in Ogun State shivered under Diya, Mariam got him to kneel down in presenting the big card.”
My other daughter countered, “She must be representing all those born on March 4.”
Lóbátán!
That was my consolation. Mariam Abacha turned 70 this year. We share the same day and year of birth. How times fly and change.
Thanks for the article.
