More than 60 percent of adults in the nation lack sufficient knowledge about drug use, a survey by the Food and Drug Administration suggested.
The survey, which collected responses from 1,070 adults aged 21 and older, showed that as many as 65 percent of respondents have bought over-the-counter drugs for self-medication, but only about 40 percent have consulted a pharmacist.
Medicinal Products Division section chief Huang Chyn-liang (黃琴喨) said the top three types of medicines that Taiwanese commonly buy on their own are painkillers (22.2 percent), cold remedies (11.3 percent) and drugs to treat an upset stomach (8.9 percent).
The survey showed that about 20 percent of respondents who buy drugs on their own said that they make purchases based on their own experience or recommendations from friends and family.
About 70 percent of this group read drug facts on labels or included instruction sheets, but more than 10 percent — mostly people older than 65 — do not read the indications, the survey showed.
“Some people choose drugs based on their intuition,” said Hsu Chia-fen (許嘉芬), a pharmacist at Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, citing one case of an older woman treated at the hospital after she had mistaken a vaginal suppository for an oral drug and felt discomfort after consumption.
Young people also make similar mistakes, Hsu said.
For example, the hospital once treated a man in his 20s who mistakenly swallowed 21 pills at once, thinking they were meant to be consumed in one serving because of a common practice at clinics to pack doses in individual packets, she said.
“Many people take medicine based on their feelings, such as taking a larger dose when they feel their symptoms have worsened,” Huang said. “However, there are risks from arbitrarily taking drugs.”
While cold medicines can be purchased without a doctor’s prescription, many contain antihistamine, which can cause drowsiness, making it unsafe to drive after consumption, she said.
People should consult a pharmacist before purchasing drugs, she said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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