Hugh Jackson

It was in 1964, while working as a consultant paediatrician in Gateshead that Hugh Jackson had the eureka moment that shaped the rest of his career. A child died after having been admitted to hospital as a result of taking 12 of his mother’s tablets. He remembered the mother repeating over and over, “Nobody told me they would do him any harm.” This was a death that could have been prevented. Around the same time more than 6000 children were being admitted to hospital in the UK with aspirin poisoning alone.

In the United States attempts were being made to design child resistant packaging, and Jackson took it on himself to lobby the authorities to adopt these. He was appointed to a British Standards Institute committee that had the remit of finding packaging that would resist the explorative efforts of most children while also allowing access for most arthritic or elderly people. They were successful: …