Ethical and practical considerations in prescribing animal-derived medication

[...]prescribing for patients with moral or religious objections to ingesting animal products will be required regularly by many prescribers. [...]informing patients of the presence of animal products in proposed drug treatment would appear to be part of obtaining consent to that treatment; this is not a problem that can be ignored. The latter is problematic, as although religion may be disclosed on admission to hospital or registration with a general practitioner, dietary choices may be less obvious and are not generally recorded in the medical records. [...]this approach is paternalistic and also runs the risks of 'missing' those who are not obviously vegetarian, or inducing guilt in those who are vegetarian but who would take animal products in medication.