Save lives, don’t destroy usable medicines!
In the Netherlands more than 100 million euros worth of medicines are being thrown away each year. Medicines that are being returned to pharmacies must be destroyed. We urge the government to ensure that returned medicines may be used instead of being burned.
Petition
We
the undersigned of this petition
establish that:
that weekly thousands of kilos of unused medicines are being returned to pharmacies in the Netherlands,
that the applicable laws stipulate for these medicines to be destroyed,
that these medicines could still safely be used and are still effective,
that elsewhere in the world medicines are desperately needed (the obvious example at the moment being the crisis in Ukraine).
and request
Secretary of State Ernst Kuipers:
to give permission to collect, transport and donate the collected medicines, provided the conditions stated below have been met,
to constructively assist in passing the changes in the law which are required to make good use of these medicines in future, instead of having them destroyed.
N.B. The argument that is being used to justify this waste, is that the quality of the medicines cannot be guaranteed. This is an important point. Therefore, we urge to limit the collection to only those medicines that do not require special storage conditions, of which the original packaging is unopened and which is in date. Collection will be done by physicians and pharmacists.