Lifting the lid on food and medicines

10:20am Thursday 8th May 2008

FOOD cheats and medical confusion were the topics of conversation at the Swindon Festival Of Literature yesterday lunchtime.

Dr Bee Wilson and Professor Nicky Britten were at the Arts Centre to discuss their new books.

The authors interviewed each other for 20 minutes and the last 10 minutes were then thrown open to a question and answer session from the audience.

Swindled, by Dr Wilson, looked at the history of food adulteration since the 18th Century. "There has always been this debate about how food in the past was so much better but that's wrong," she said.

Professor Britten, in her book Medicines And Society, looked at prescriptions, self-care and complementary medicines. She spoke about how just because a drug had been tested it didn't automatically mean that it was safe.

She discussed how the tests carried out are only done on a few thousand people whereas the medicines are prescribed to millions and she questioned whether this meant that the rare side effects were not picked up.

Avantika Bhargava

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