Talk:WHO Model List of Essential Medicines/Archive 1

TOC headings

Just a note that the heading numbers generated for the sections matches that in the 14th edition. So, if you add, move, or remove headings then things won't match. Cburnett 18:07, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

What do the crosses mean?

I forget what the real name for that symbol is, but the little cross/t next to some medicines would indicate that they all belong to some group, but what that group *is* is not defined... Kailey elise (talk) 20:01, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Can somebody please fix the problem that Kailey was referring to? It's been seven months and the problem still hasn't been fixed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.80.104.209 (talk) 04:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The cross is defined in the lead paragraph (and has been for a while): "A † indicates the medicine is a complementary item". I agree that it's not an obvious place for it. Perhaps a footnote type scheme would be better. I've submitted my attempt. This still leaves open the question of *which* medicine each one is complementary for, however. -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 19:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Antihistamines

Why can't i find "hista" on this page? Warmest Regards, :)—_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 12:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Because its not on this page. The Hista moth is not an Essential Medicine. If you are referring to histamines, I dont think that this is ever given as a medication, as our bodies produce them naturally, so it would not be an Essential Medicine. Ask the next question(Mercurywoodrose)75.61.134.183 (talk)

Antidiarrheal (symptomatic) medicines in adults

its a sort of off label usage, did the WHO really put this? i can think much more effective meds, most of which OTC. Deddokatana (talk) 00:19, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Clomipramine as the only entry for OCD, ditto. Clomipramine hasn't been the medication of choice for OCD for donkey's years! It's still occasionally tried when all SSRIs have failed, but that's all. Is this really still what the WHO are saying?Wombat140 (talk) 13:10, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

ephedrine categorization

Ephedrine is listed as a local anesthetic, but the linked ephedrine article does not describe it as such — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:9:280:1165:D8BD:48E4:AD9D:7CCA (talk) 02:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

There isn't much more than a list.

Being a reader who is not very familiar with the subject, this article doesn't really tell me much other than when this list is published and what is on it. What significance does it have? What purpose does it serve? Does the WHO provide aid to help developing countries obtain these medicines? Is having these medicines a criteria for any sort of recognition of medical facilities? Is there any controversy over what medicines should be on the list, or are there accusations of the list being used to benefit certain pharmaceutical companies? What is the scope of the list? (i.e. is it a list of medicines needed to respond to emergencies, to treat long term ailments, or to treat every possible medical problem?) I would love to see that sort of information included.Dakane2 (talk) 05:44, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Great questions. Feel free to add these details. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:43, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. I'd also like to see it mention the total number of medicines that are on the list(s). This seems like basic information that should be in the lead section of this article in its current state/format of sections. jrun (talk) 19:16, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Agree Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:48, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The link to 'essential medicines' is currently the main source of further information here. benrusholme (talk) 19:01, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

This list suffers from a number of problems, the most obvious of which is that many drugs are listed multiple times. I've reviewed the list and also find a couple of other problems if anyone wants to volunteer...The first is it includes several devices, which as I understand it, are NOT medicines. All of the devices, strangely enough, are used in contraception. There are 14 drug combinations of which all components are listed separately, so other than conveniance, a reason for their appearing here in (at least) two different entries needs discussion, imho. There are several vague categories which seem of questionable: for instance antivenom immunoglobulin but WHICH AVI depends on locality - obviously some places have more than one common venomous creature which creates a need while others have none. Another example is influenza vaccine but again that isn't a medicine since the composition changes every year. Another ambiguous entry is dialysis solution, which is device dependent, I belive. I question the inclusion of fresh frozen plasma, red blood cells, platelet concentrates, and whole blood since they rapidly degrade and can't be stored for long (I'm not sure about the FFP). So, there are several problems with the list which are pretty obvious to me. OTOH, I offer the following suggestions for fixes: 1. Calcium is on the list. Since it reacts violently with water, I doubt it should be there. 2. Condoms are listed. Male or Female or both? 3. Copper containing device and Diaphram are listed. Change to Intrauterine diaphragm and intrauterine copper-containing device.4. Surfactant is listed, change to pulmonary surfactant. 5. Chlorine base compound is listed. Change to hypochlorite (Na or Ca) or chlorine gas (although solutions of the gas are also possible)- "chlorine bleach" would include all of these. 6. link provided in fresh frozen plasma do NOT link to the correct article:Fresh Frozen Plasma. btw, removing the devices, blood products and redundancies (and the impossible to define items) there are 349 medicines left from the list.Abitslow (talk) 00:55, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

This is based on the WHO document. If the WHO wants to have non medicines on there essential medicine lists we will list them. Yes a few of the rest of the other adjustments are reasonable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:33, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Brandnames

Many medications have dozens if not hundreds of these. I support sticking with INN with some USAN. Peoples thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:07, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

My reason for adding some of them was to allow reader to identify them from their other names without having to click through to their respective articles. I might have got a bit carried away; I took the names from the leads of the respective articles. LongHairedFop (talk) 08:51, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes the problem is that so many have so many brand names, especially the medicines found on this list as they are more often generic. To keep things uncluttered having the generics only might be best as they are more globally recognized. Not sure what the ideal answer is. Maybe when people put their cursor over the name all 100 or 1000 brandnames could appear. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:04, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Names

IMO we should generally go with the names in the WHO document. Thus restored [1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:13, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Picture

This article could use a picture. There are some great ones here. Now to convince the WHO to release one under an open license. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:27, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Other possible pictures[2] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:05, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Emergency Kits

The various emergency kits probably deserve some discussion in the lede. The underlying idea is rather elegant: the IEHK 2011 has ten identical "basic unit" boxes, each containing enough medicines, disposables and instruments for 1000 people for three months to be used by primary caregivers in a generic emergency, then supplementary kits address supplies for professional workers, for diarrhoeal disease care, for emergency trauma care, and for surgical supplies. They are described in detail by this publication. Obviously not all the Model List meds are in each kit, but one might reasonably expect all of them to be in one or other of the kits. Perhaps the list should flag which kit(s) each med is found in? LeadSongDog come howl! 18:58, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes says based primarily on the ELM. So sure. What do you think we should add? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:38, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

On closer reading, the EHK2011 explicitly does not contain everything on the MLEM. It mentions, for instance, that only one of two similarly-acting drugs (antidepressants IIRC) is included in the kit, although both are on the MLEM. Anyhow, it might be useful to footnote each drug with the kit(s) in which it is found. Having said that, it would be a big task. One alternative would be to create separate list-class articles for the kits. Another would be to create and populate Category:Drugs in the IEHK basic unit, etc. There might be some cleaner wikidata approach, though I can't say I really understand d: very well. The advantage of that would be obvious when translation is considered. For a starter, the lede of MLEM could include some simple statement, such as "The drugs in the WHO inter-agency emergency health kits are selected from this list." LeadSongDog come howl! 19:02, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Would be good to create that article first. And than yes we can link to it from such a statement. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:23, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

That makes sense. In the meantime, the statement could be present without the wikilink, though we might be hard put to point to an unambiguous RS that doesn't require some SYNTH.LeadSongDog come howl! 18:39, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations

Congratulations to all the contributors of this page for making this appear on the main page of Wikipedia! Thank you. -- Abhijeet Safai (talk) 06:41, 5 June 2017 (UTC)