Lesson 4. The side effects of drugs

Words to the text “The side effects of drugs”

Pain – killer болеутоляющее To reduce уменьшать

Available доступный To increase увеличивать

Common обычный To design разрабатывать

Inflammation воспаление Society общество

To create создавать To cure излечивать

Drowsiness сонливость Interaction взаимодействие

Over the counter drugs/ OTC - лекарства, продающиеся без рецепта

Addictive - вызывающий привыкание

Ex.1 Переведите устно выделенные международные слова, подзаголовки. Переведите текст письменно.

You could be mixing up a lethal cocktail

1.The cough mixture you take can have harmful - even fatal - side effects.

"There is no drug that does not have side effects," says Dr Patrick Purcell of the Adverse Drug Reaction Committee.

With an ageing (стареющее) population and chronically ill people the drug market is increasing all the time, and with it, the potential problems.

But not only prescribed drugs are the problem. Australia has the highest kidney disease rate (заболеваемость) in the world, primarily because of the overuse of highly popular pain-killing powders available over the counter until the late Seventies.

Only last year it was found that commonly available cough mixtures which contained the ingredient osolamine citrate could cause severe hallucinations in young children.

Well-known brands of cough mixtures contained an "irrational brew" (безумная смесь) of often contradictory ingredients, including one that contained poison belladonna.

Many cough mixtures, anti-allergy medications and anti-inflammatory drugs contain antihistamine.

Antihistamines cause drowsiness and impair alertness (ухудшение реакции). Reaction times and co-ordination become equivalent to, or more than, a.05 alcohol reading (показатели).

Yet (тем не менее) there is no law or penalty for driving with a high level of this medication in your blood.

2. Different drugs may have little or no effect on one another. Sometimes they help one another, sometimes they reduce an effect. But more often they cause a harmful reaction.

Patients often forget to tell their doctors about common over-the-counter drugs they take, such as pain-killers and cough medicines. And, of course, many people forget or ignore the danger of mixing medicines with the most common drug in our society: alcohol.

Many sedatives, tranquillisers and pain-killers cause tolerance which leads to the need for higher doses, creating danger of overdose.