In late December 2021 the Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA) proposed amendments to the Poisons Standard, for discussion in March 2022.
There are two amendments that are relevant to the veterinary profession: meloxicam and lidocaine, and we have a working group in place, involving a number of subject matter experts and special interest groups, to develop the AVA and associated special interest group submissions around these amendments. We encourage individual members to comment on these amendments as well by submitting a response on the TGA website.
When asked in your submission, please respond as an individual. This can be done through accessing the SUBMIT YOUR RESPONSE tab on the consultation hub on the TGA website. The submission requires you to include
- If you do or do not support or have no opinion about each amendment (there are more amendments than meloxicam and lidocaine)
- If you have a supporting statement to make (this can be a pdf or written in an online comments box). We have drafted some points that you may want to consider including, based on the AVA's position for each drug.
Item 2.3 Meloxicam
The proposal is to create a new Schedule 6 entry for meloxicam that captures oral transmucosal preparations, at up to 1 per cent concentration, for pre-surgical treatment and pain management during routine animal husbandry procedures. The new entry would allow access to meloxicam without a prescription for pain relief in animals undergoing these procedures.
This would mean that an oral formulation of meloxicam (currently S4, and thus prescription-only) would be available over-the-counter for anyone to access.
The AVA is opposed to this amendment and does NOT support item 2.3 meloxicam as it provides opportunity for uncontrolled use of a potentially dangerous drug in a broad number of species, including humans. We have emphasised the public health risks that this poses, as this is a particular focus of the TGA, and we encourage you to similarly emphasize this point.
