when did paracetamol become available in the uk
Paracetamol Paracetamol was first marketed in the United States in 1950 under the name Triagesic, a combination of paracetamol, aspirin, and caffeine.[123] Reports in 1951 of three users stricken with the blood disease agranulocytosis led to its removal from the marketplace, and it took several years until it became clear that the disease was unconnected.[123] Paracetamol was marketed in 1953 by Sterling-Winthrop Co. as Panadol, available only by prescription, and promoted as preferable to aspirin since it was safe for children and people with ulcers.[123][125][133] In 1955, paracetamol was marketed as Children's Tylenol Elixir by McNeil Laboratories.[134] In 1956, 500Â mg tablets of paracetamol went on sale in the United Kingdom under the trade name Panadol, produced by Frederick Stearns & Co, a subsidiary of Sterling Drug Inc. In 1963, paracetamol was added to the British Pharmacopoeia, and has gained popularity since then as an analgesic agent with few side-effects and little interaction with other pharmaceutical agents.[123] Concerns about paracetamol's safety delayed its widespread acceptance until the 1970s, but in the 1980s paracetamol sales exceeded those of aspirin in many countries, including the United Kingdom. This was accompanied by the commercial demise of phenacetin, blamed as the cause of analgesic nephropathy and hematological toxicity.[109] In 1988 Sterling Winthrop was acquired by Eastman Kodak which sold the over the counter drug rights to SmithKline Beecham in 1994.[135]
Sulfonamide (medicine) The result was a sulfa craze.[10] For several years in the late 1930s, hundreds of manufacturers produced tens of thousands of tons of myriad forms of sulfa. This and nonexistent testing requirements led to the elixir sulfanilamide disaster in the fall of 1937, during which at least 100 people were poisoned with diethylene glycol. This led to the passage of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938 in the United States. As the first and only effective antibiotic available in the years before penicillin, sulfa drugs continued to thrive through the early years of World War II.[11] They are credited with saving the lives of tens of thousands of patients, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. (son of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Winston Churchill. Sulfa had a central role in preventing wound infections during the war. American soldiers were issued a first-aid kit containing sulfa pills and powder, and were told to sprinkle it on any open wound.