Sick Day Scare

Sick days. We've all been guilty of, at one time or another, cashing one in for a reason other than an illness. A gorgeous sunny day, a happy hour that went on a bit too late, or one of those mornings when surrendering to the alarm clock and climbing out from under the covers is simply not an option. Italy has an interesting stance on sick days for those working in Aviation (and by interesting I mean very unfortunate). I am not sure if this policy extends to workers in general, but by Italian law, if a pilot must call into work to take a sick day (even just one) he must visit a doctor and submit paperwork from the visit within 24 hours to his employer. The effectively takes the "fun" out of the occasional sick day for any pilot working in Italy.

Recently, Roland had to take a day off because he was feeling, generally, a little bit unwell. There was no extreme sickness, just an uneasy stomach and some cold symptoms. He didn't need a doctor, but as the visit was madatory due to law, he went in. Luckily for him, there is a physician's office around the corner from us that caters specifically to pilots. This means, at the very least, there is never a wait or inconvenience to see a doctor. He came home who two prescriptions: One was dissolvable vitamin C tablets. Understandable. The other was a Drug called Aulin. Due to the language barrier, Roland hadn't quite understood what this was for. So I looked it up and was, effectively, shocked by what I found. Apparently, Aulin (the generic name for a drug called Nimesulide) does not sit at the top of the list of high quality drugs which are safe and widely prescribed. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The drug is an anti-inflammatory (NSAID) used to treat acute pain and osteoarthritis. As soon as I typed in the name of the drug on Google, I found page after page of cautions and warnings on its unsafe track record. It has never been approved for use in countries such as USA, UK, Canada, Australia New Zealand, among many others, in view of concerns over its safety profile. It has, in fact, been reported to be a contributing factor in hundreds of cases of liver disease and a number of resulting deaths. Many European countries have investigated Aulin and consequently banned the drug. And then there is Italy...

Interestingly, in 2008, an Italian news agency came forward after having received videotape of a top-ranking official at Italy's medicines agency, AIFA, accepting bribes from pharmaceutical companies. The bribes were given to ensure that a number of drugs, Aulin (Nimesulide) being the most prominent, would avoid scrutiny by drug-investigating authorities in Italy. Although this was exposed in the media, the drug is obvioulsy still prescribed.

We found it pretty shocking, to say the least, that Roland received this drug after his visit. Whether it was a matter of a miscommunication due to the language barrier, we aren't sure, but he definitely was not suffering from acute pain or osteoarthritis. Obvioulsy, the medicine went in the trash. It goes a long way to show that we need to be extra-diligent about looking after ourselves in all respects here, especially as English speakers, when miscommunications with Italian speakers happen more often than not. Lesson learned!