PROFESSOR Peter Carroll from the University of Sydney has cited "serious concerns" with the Therapeutic Goods Administration's estimate of 100 annual deaths attributed to OTC codeine (PD yesterday), saying the figures do not compare "apples with apples".
The TGA has taken statistics from the Roxburgh et al research report and then extrapolated to calculate the number for 2017, eight years after the data was collected.
However in the intervening period some products were rescheduled to Schedule 3, and MedsASSIST was introduced in Mar 2016.
"The TGA's calculations do not take into account these significant changes to the availability of the products which were not operational for the period 2000-2009," Carroll said.
"One could equally make a similar calculation for 2018, even though codeine products are no longer available OTC," he added.
"To me the TGA's calculations are just not valid...I believe it is clearly wrong to claim that OTC codeine-containing products were responsible for the deaths of 100 Australians in 2017 when the data used to calculate this figure was collected a decade or more ago, and under different circumstances."
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