Pharmacists who illegally supplied more than 55 million doses of controlled drugs sentenced

[helvella]

Being a press release, this is obviously a fairly cleaned up version of things.

Press release

Pharmacists who illegally supplied more than 55 million doses of controlled drugs sentenced

Two pharmacists who sold ‘industrial’ quantities of Class C controlled drugs were yesterday sentenced to two years’ imprisonment each, suspended for 24 months, at Southwark Crown Court following an investigation by the Criminal Enforcement Unit of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA).

...

The court heard that PHL, the company of which Sidhu was a director, purchased 4.27 million tablets in August 2014, and 4.5 million tablets in March 2015, even though PHL had not legally dispensed any medicines against a prescription since July 19, 2013.

For perspective, around 5 million diazepam tablets were legally dispensed against prescription in the whole of England during 2014.

gov.uk/government/news/phar...

The idea that one little pharmacy could, in both 2014 and 2015, handle close to the entire UK legal requirement for diazepam, and absolutely NO-ONE noticed, nor blew a whistle.

Yet, so many here have had a problem in getting a handful of liothyronine tablets due to ignorance and fear in GPs (primarily, but also some endos) of getting into trouble. Despite being wholly legal, entirely appropriate for the person who needs them, often a GP has been advised to prescribe by a consultant, patients who can demonstrate their wellness. Yet still they won't.

I'd have expected the MHRA, police, or whoever, to have some sort of monitoring of the biggest transactions. There again, maybe I wouldn't...

[tattybogle]

I'm quite shocked no-one noticed ... 0 prescriptions ..... getting through such huge amounts..... these pharmacists were literally 'asking to get caught' .... and since it was 10 yrs ago it's a reasonable assumption no-one noticed it for a very long time .

and it's nigh on impossible to get a doctor to prescribe any diazepam nowadays ... surely these huge orders must surely have stuck out like a sore thumb to anyone giving it a cursary glance.

[Regenallotment]

how amazing to go unnoticed, staggering quantities too! I’m amazed they didn’t cause a diazepam shortage 🙈

[birkie]

Makes you wonder how this could happen helvella 🤔 I spoke to an endo in my area not that long ago in relation to the thyroid t4, t3 not working for me , I asked about NDT and could I possibly have a trial of it as it's been 4 years trying the synthetic version, which I pointed out as never worked for me. The endo said definitely not, we would not recommend NDT as there is not enough evidence for it working ,or research within the patient thyroid community 😒.

I then said " hasn't that drug been around longer than the synthetic version"

To which she just refused to take the conversation any further ...maby I should have just asked for dizapepam 😄

[Vvap]

You said I had experience with Liothyronine- I used to get it from abroad, but the person who got it for me is no longer able to. Five or six years ago, an endo here told me if I was asking for it, she couldn’t give it to me.