Headlines 25 years ago this week....

400 drugs still to prove efficacy in the USA, said the Department of Health and Human Services, following pressure from consumer activist organizations, particularly Ralph Nader's Health Research Group. The efficacy of all prescription drugs approved between 1938 and 1962 was not required to be demonstrated.

UK's House of Lords hits out at parallel importing of drugs, publishing a report that attacks the European Commission's proposal to allow such practices, which claims that PI would put established drugmakers in "an impossible position."

Pharmaceutical trade names should be dropped, says Swedish medical journal, claiming that there are too many and thus confuse, but pharmacists argue that they guarantee the patient always gets the same drug.