Prescription Drugs

found on the net

Do You Know What FDA Approval of a Drug Means?

Jessie Gruman | September 14, 2011

Continuing the thread of the difficulty of making good decisions about prescription drugs: It appears that many of us think that FDA approval of a drug means safer and better…Not so fast: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/12/us-drug-approval-misunderstanding-idUSTRE78B6IK20110912 Once again, Steve Woloshin at the White River Junction VA Med Ctr and his Dartmouth colleagues shine a spotlight on a topic where [...]

found on the net, general

Just Say “Know” to Drugs: A Proposal to Improve Prescription Drug Information

Jessie Gruman | September 6, 2011

Have you followed the long and painful efforts to improve the information prescription drug manufacturers are required to provide us? Really, given that almost half of us in the US take at least one prescription medication daily, you’d think this would be a high priority among all those public and private agencies and companies who [...]

e-patient stories, general, patient networks, pts as teachers, trends & principles

e-Patients Discover Unrecognized Side Effects

Joe Graedon | June 25, 2009

Detecting drug complications is too important to leave to doctors or FDA administrators. We have learned the hard way that randomized controlled trials (RCTs) don’t detect all the adverse drug effects that may be important. Far too often, serious side effects brought on by popular drugs can go unrecognized for years. A recent review in [...]