FDA Addresses Medical Errors And $4 Billion Pricetag
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As we look at saving money on health care spending, Americans should consider drugs, specifically the huge cost of medical errors involving prescriptions.
Medication interactions, a mix-up in the pharmacy such as switching out the wrong prescription, an inability read a doctor’s handwriting, all can lead to drug dosage errors which cost us all about $4 billion a year, not to mention lives and injuries.
Now the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says it is trying to identify the most serious threats to better understand and get a handle on the problem. Consider this- errors with medication happen often - about 1.5 million errors every year according to a two- year-old study by the Institute of Medicine.
A recent Hearst Newspaper group investigation, "Dead By Mistake" profiles many who lost their lives through medication errors.
It so astonishing that even the new FDA commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, who is a doctor, was stunned by the numbers. She announced a new plan called “Safe Use Initiative” by saying it “doesn’t require a new scientific discovery or a budget appropriation.”
In holding public hearing and gathering information from the public about that problem, the FDA would be wise to speak with personal injury attorneys.
Every week we hear of the adverse events that can occur from drugs, even when they are used as directed of prescribed. Consider Tylenol that can cause liver damage when taken in excess, and the devastating outcomes of drugs when they are not.
Public Citizen is onboard with this scrutiny of package labels, and inserts, and instructions given to dispensing pharmacists. Dr. Sidney Wolfe says that about 99.5 percent of pamphlets are missing critical information.
While medication is supposed to make us feel better and perhaps save lives, patients and doctors forget almost every medication eventually has a side effect. The presumption of safety needs to be challenged.
Instead of relying on a “Pill for every Ill” Americans need to remember that “safe medication” is an oxymoron. #