Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

The bill was strongly opposed by the BMA due to inadequate money
for the doctors.
The UK Select Committee Report on Patent Medicines
recommended the creation of a Medicines Commission, that all
medicines should be registered for an annual fee and that the
qualifications for being on the register should be that of quality, safety
and efficacy. These were not enacted because of the outbreak of the
First World War (Select Committee on Patent Medicines, London:
HMSO [Her Majesty’s Stationary Office]).
1913 The Medical Research Council (MRC) was set-up with funding by
the government under the 1911 National Insurance Act.
1915 ‘The Committee (MRC) venture to urge that members of the medical
profession would be performing a service of national importance, in
the present emergency, by keeping accurate records of cases in
which the new preparations are used, and by placing such records at
the disposal of the committee for their private information and
guidance. Particular stress must be laid upon the desirability of
recording in every case, the name of the preparation used and the
serial number applied by the manufacturer to the particular batch
employed together with such details as to dosage, the precautions
taken to ensure purity of the water used and finally the results of the
administration, both as regards therapeutic efficacy and the presence
or absence of special incidental symptoms.’ (BMJ Editorial, 1915).
The first public request for spontaneous reporting of ‘incidental
symptoms’.
First experimental evidence of cancer by chemicals reported when
repeated applications of coal tar to the ears of rabbits resulted in skin
cancer (Yamagiwa & Ichikawa, 1915).
Otto Seifert wrote ‘Die Nebenwirkungen der modernen arzneimittel
[The side effects of modern drugs]. There are eighteen chapters in
278 pages and the book covers all groups of drugs. Each drug has a
section on its use followed by a list of its side-effects, which are well
referenced. Of the drugs dealt with in part 3 of this book he mentions:
antipyrine, Aspirin, Phenacetin, amidopyrine, phenobarbitone,
phenolphthalein, cincophen, piperazine, bismuth subgallate and
phenformin (Seifert, 1915).
In a standard UK medical textbook, ‘Wheeler’s Handbook of
Medicine’, there is no mention of ‘adverse reactions’ or ‘side effects’.
Common mild adverse effects are rarely mentioned; the only ones