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Free Drug Information

• Misprescribing & overprescribing of drugs
  The numbers are staggering: in 2003, an estimated 3.4 billion prescriptions were filled in retail drugstores and by mail order in the United States. That averages out to 11.7 prescriptions filled for each of the 290 million people in this country. But many people do not get any prescriptions filled in a given year, so it is also important to find out how many prescriptions are filled by those who fill one or more prescriptions. In a study based on data from 2000, more than twice as many prescriptions were filled for those 65 and older (23.5 prescriptions per year) than for those younger than 65 (10.1 prescriptions per year).

• Diseases caused by drugs
  Each year, more than 9.6 million adverse drug reactions occur in older Americans. The referenced study found that 37% of these adverse reactions were not reported to the doctor, presumably because patients did not realize the reactions were due to the drug. This is not too surprising considering that most doctors admitted they did not explain possible adverse effects to their patients.

• The public health crisis of adverse drug reactions
  Although some adverse drug reactions (ADR) are not very serious, others cause the death, hospitalization, or serious injury of more than 2 million people in the United States each year, including more than 100,000 fatalities. In fact, adverse drug reactions are one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Most of the time, these dangerous events could and should have been avoided. Even the less drastic reactions, such as change in mood, loss of appetite, and nausea, may seriously diminish the quality of life.

• How to protect your family from adverse drug reactions
  Doctors and pharmacists often blame the adverse effects of prescription drugs on patients, accusing them of improperly taking their medications. The standard solution offered by some health professionals is to get patients to better “comply” with doctors’instructions by using what are called compliance programs or strategies. (Another word for compliance is, of course, obedience.) Occasionally, the blame is also put on doctors for misprescribing and overprescribing, on pharmacists for failing to detect serious drug interactions, and only rarely on the drug industry for overselling drugs to doctors and now directly to patients through direct-to-consumer advertising.

• Cutting your prescription drug bill
  For many people in the United States, the price of prescription drugs is unaffordable. Many drugs cost $500, $1,000, $2,000, or more per drug and many people are taking more than one of them. Although the majority of these drugs have not yet come off patent and generic equivalents are therefore not available, the lack of the kind of price controls that exist in all other developed countries (and in the Department of Defense and the Veteran’s Administration in the United States) presents an insufferable financial burden for too many people. This chapter discusses five ways to save on prescription drugs.

• Facts and myths about generic drugs
  Unless you want to waste a large amount of money—often hundreds of dollars a year—by using brand-name instead of generic drugs, you should ask for the generic version, especially if you are starting on a drug for the first time. One of the few bits of comparative information about prescription drugs readily accessible to consumers is the retail price of brand-name versus generic drugs. You can get this information easily by asking your pharmacist.

• Ten rules for safer drug use
  Ten straightforward ways to reduce you and your family's chances of being injured by drugs. The rules include communicating more effectively with your health care providers, using the lowest effective dose of your medication, adjusting the dose for your age and deciding whether you are experiencing an adverse effect from your drugs.

• Drugs, Money and Politics
  The pharmaceutical industry has a heavy hand in all issues related to prescription drugs, from massive campaign contributions to congresspeople to decisions about which drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Learn more about drug pricing, industry profiteering, drug patents and the Medicare drug benefit.