The Dangers Of Prescription Drugs

Raises key questions about topics in the pharmaceutical industry, including how the risks of side effects are weighed, if privatization of that risk is prudent, and the high prices for drugs.

Few people realize that prescription drugs have become a leading cause of death, disease, and disability. Adverse reactions to widely used drugs, such as psychotropics and birth control pills, as well as biologicals, result in FDA warnings against adverse reactions. The Risks of Prescription Drugs describes how most drugs approved by the FDA are under-tested for adverse drug reactions, yet offer few new benefits. Drugs cause more than 2.2 million hospitalizations and 110,000 hospital-based deaths a year. Serious drug reactions at home or in nursing homes would significantly raise the total. Women, older people, and people with disabilities are least used in clinical trials and most affected. Health policy experts Donald Light, Howard Brody, Peter Conrad, Allan Horwitz, and Cheryl Stults describe how current regulations reward drug companies to expand clinical risks and create new diseases so millions of patients are exposed to unnecessary risks, especially women and the elderly. They reward developing marginally better drugs rather than discovering breakthrough, life-saving drugs. The Risks of Prescription Drugs tackles critical questions about the pharmaceutical industry and the privatization of risk. To what extent does the FDA protect the public from serious side effects and disasters? What is the effect of giving the private sector and markets a greater role and reducing public oversight? This volume considers whether current rules and incentives put patients' health at greater risk, the effect of the expansion of disease categories, the industry's justification of high U.S. prices, and the underlying shifts in the burden of risk borne by individuals in the world of pharmaceuticals. Chapters cover risks of statins for high cholesterol, SSRI drugs for depression and anxiety, and hormone replacement therapy for menopause. A final chapter outlines six changes to make drugs safer and more effective. Suitable for courses on health and aging, gender, disability, and minority studies, this book identifies the Risk Proliferation Syndrome that maximizes the number of people exposed to these risks. Additional Columbia / SSRC books on the privatization of risk and its implications for Americans: Bailouts: Public Money, Private ProfitEdited by Robert E. Wright Disaster and the Politics of InterventionEdited by Andrew Lakoff Health at Risk: America's Ailing Health System-and How to Heal ItEdited by Jacob S. Hacker Laid Off, Laid Low: Political and Economic Consequences of Employment InsecurityEdited by Katherine S. Newman Pensions, Social Security, and the Privatization of RiskEdited by Mitchell A. Orenstein

To what extent does the FDA protect the public from serious side effects and disasters? What is the effect of giving the prvate sector and markets a greater role and reducing public oversight? This book considers whether current rules and incentives put patients' health at greater risk, the effect of the expansion of disease categories, the industry's justification of high U.S. prices, and the underlying shifts in the burden of risk borne by individuals in the world of pharmaceuticals--Cover.

Prescription drugs seem completely safe to many people. After all, trained medical professionals prescribe them to help us. However, prescription drugs can be unsafe if used improperly. Some interact with other medicines and can cause problems. Others can be addictive. Some people may take drugs that aren't prescribed to them because the drugs make them feel good. The age-appropriate language, informative fact boxes, and photographs in this book will help readers understand the dangers associated with prescription drugs. Readers will learn about the short- and long-term effects of some prescription drugs and some of the signs of prescription drug abuse.

Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.

A veteran board-certified pharmacist cites the high number of annual deaths associated with prescription drug side effects, calling for changes in prescription practices that account for the needs of aging bodies.

Understanding risk -- Putting risk in perspective -- Risk charts : a way to get perspective -- Judging the benefit of a health intervention -- Not all benefits are equal : understand the outcome -- Consider the downsides -- Do the benefits outweight the downsides? -- Beware of exaggerated importance -- Beware of exaggerated certainty -- Who's behind the numbers?

In 1966, Joan Gadsbys four-year-old son died of a brain tumour. In response, her family physician prescribed a 'chemical cocktail' of tranquillisers, sleeping pills and anti-depressants -- an act that initiated Gadsbys slow descent into an abyss of unrecognised addiction. Over the next 20 years, Gadsbys career, her family relationships, her financial security and her health were all threatened. She was on various occasions arrested, restrained, and sedated as a result of the paradoxical side effects of the drugs. It was only after she unintentionally overdosed in 1990 that she found out the insidious effects of the drugs, stopped taking them and went through the 'hell' of withdrawal -- alone. Gadsby has emerged from her addiction to become a health and wellness consultant to corporations, governments, healthcare organisations. She is a tireless advocate for systemic change and accountability of prescribed sedative/hypnotic drugs. She interviewed thousands -- from consumers to doctors to pharmaceutical representatives and government officials as she conducted extensive international research -- in her quest to expose the shocking truth of the depth and breadth of addiction by prescription which affects hundreds of thousands of men and women world-wide who become 'accidental addicts'.