Differences between nomenclatures are much greater than editorial suggested

EDITOR,—C F George discusses the difficulties that will result from the European Commission's directive which states that the international non-proprietary name, not the British approved name, must appear on the labels and leaflets of medicinal products from January 1998.1 George underestimates the problem, however, in asserting that “in total, 41 drugs have a British approved name that is significantly different to their recommended international non-proprietary name.” I recently reviewed this issue and compared the official listings of the British approved names and the international non-proprietary …