At 07:44 20/02/99 -0800, you wrote:
>I am trying to still investigate the dangers of lactose in medications.  Has
>anyone on this list ever talked to the Federal Food and Drug
Administration?  I
>called one company that recommended not using the medication because of the
>lactose in the medication because it was derived from cow milk.
>
Hi

I brought up this problem sometime ago and the reply I got from the
European agency regarding medication is below

    Dear Evert,

     I received your above request via Jan. We do not currently have a list
     of British medicines containing lactose, but do have general
     publications on the incidence of lactose intolerance and the levels of
     lactose required to trigger side effects in susceptible individuals
     (12grams per dose).

     A comprehensive recent publication was that produced by the TNO
     Nutrition and Research Institute in the Netherlands (December 1996)
     entitled : "Lactose intolerance: nutritional implications" who
     concluded that 10-15 grams of lactose could be consumed without any
     symptoms of lactose intolerance in individuals who are judged to be
     lactose intolerant in a traditional lactose intolerance test.

The FDA will have similar guidelines I think.

However in order to change lactose as a filler  or excipient (technical
term) new licences must be acquired and pharm companies won't do this. The
companies work on the principle is keep it cheap.

Okay why have lactose in the first place, simply to let people see the
tablet the amount of drug in the avergae tablet is minute so they use
lactose to bulk it up.

The easier solution for mist people is to find if a liquid  form of the
medication is available this hopefully shouldn't contain the filler, only
sweetener and other forms of rubbish they stick in medicines :)

Alan

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
      UK's only site for the Lactose Intolerant try....
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/park/gfm11/index.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------