PERMISSIBILITY (HALAL)-STATUS OF CARDIOVASCULAR MEDICATIONS IN MALAYSIA.

Abstract

Cardiovascular medications are broadly prescribed in hospital settings around the world and inMalaysia.However, the Islamic-permissibility or (Halal)-status of these medicationsis still inadequate. This study was conducted to assess the Halalstatus of these medications from a scientific point of view depending on data collected from two hospitals in Malaysia. The Halal assessment in this study, wasbased on scrutinizing the sources of each ingredient listed in the selected medications leaflets by referring to thestandardacademic references and other references available at time. Froma total of 180 cardiovascular medicinal productsthat was assessedin this study, it was found that 7.78% of them arepermissible (Halal compatible), followed by 6.67% asnon-permissible (non-Halal compatible) , 49.44% were classified as doubtful (Mushbooh) and remaining 36.11% of them were considered as unknown in terms oftheir Halal status. Themajority of cardiovascular medications were classified as doubtful due to the principal concept of the final Halal status, which requires anabsolute permissibilityof all of the used ingredients, causing the presence of even one doubtful ingredient in the final formulation toalter the whole final product to be classified as doubtful. Whereas the unknown classification was attributed to unavailable information on the excipients used by the drug manufacturer, which prevented a detailed assessment of such medication.The non-permissibleclassification was related to the presence of any non-permissible ingredient in the product. In conclusion, despite this study have met part of the growing demand on identifying cardiovascular medications permissibility, further cooperation is required between the pharmaceutical manufacturers, Muslim academician and health care professionals,to achieve a goal of stretching the use of Halal medications for desiring patients.