Adverse drug reactions in the news, Part 1
This week, adverse drug reactions made the headlines. The AP reported a study showing adverse reactions result in more than 700,000 visits to emergency rooms every year. That’s reactions to legit drugs, to prescribed pharmaceuticals — insulin, blood thinners, antibiotics, statins, etc. — and a few over-the-counter medications, like aspirin. Seven hundred thousand. Annually. Sounds like a lot, right?
But wait, as the Ginzu knife infomercial implores, there’s more. The report didn’t mention the more than 100,000 fatalities that make drug reactions one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Nor did the article mention the 1.5 million hospitalizations caused by adverse drug reactions.
And, of course, none of this takes into account the reactions that don’t send folks to the hospital or the morgue, but that do cause serious life-disrupting symptoms — like headache, mood change, loss of libido, and nausea, to name just a few.
And, to add insult to injury, many of these reactions are — you guessed it — preventable. “But how can this be?” you ask. Well, guess what? Many of the drugs involved should never have been prescribed together; some prescribed doses were too high; and some drugs triggered allergies that were already known to the patient, but were never discussed with the prescribing physician, who apparently didn’t get around to the right questions. And they call me a quack.
But wait, as the Ginzu knife infomercial implores, there’s more. The report didn’t mention the more than 100,000 fatalities that make drug reactions one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Nor did the article mention the 1.5 million hospitalizations caused by adverse drug reactions.
And, of course, none of this takes into account the reactions that don’t send folks to the hospital or the morgue, but that do cause serious life-disrupting symptoms — like headache, mood change, loss of libido, and nausea, to name just a few.
And, to add insult to injury, many of these reactions are — you guessed it — preventable. “But how can this be?” you ask. Well, guess what? Many of the drugs involved should never have been prescribed together; some prescribed doses were too high; and some drugs triggered allergies that were already known to the patient, but were never discussed with the prescribing physician, who apparently didn’t get around to the right questions. And they call me a quack.
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