Each week there are numerous articles, reports and other sources, usually from mainstream media, that demonstrate the potential hazards and dangers involved in using prescription drugs.
Below you’ll find a list of 8 fairly recent articles and reports that discuss the negative effects of a wide range of prescriptions drugs. Sources include ABC News, Reuters, and ScienceDaily.
Reports of Serious Drug Reactions Hit Record
The number of serious problems and deaths linked to medications reported to the government set a record in the first three months of this year, a health industry watchdog group said Wednesday.
The Food and Drug Administration received nearly 21,000 reports of serious drug reactions, including over 4,800 deaths, said an analysis of federal data by the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices, which scrutinized data going back to 2004, and yearly totals dating to the 1990s.
FDA Tells Patients to Stick With Diabetes Drug Linked to Cancer
Despite recent studies suggesting that the injected diabetes drug Lantus (insulin glargine) might boost cancer risk, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday urged patients who are on the medication to continue using it.
Three of four studies published last Friday in Diabetologia showed a potential link between Lantus — an insulin analogue made by French drug company Sanofi-aventis — and increased risks for various tumor types.
Dry Mouth Linked to Prescription and Over the Counter Drugs
Approximately ninety-one percent of dentists say patients complaining about dry mouth are taking multiple medications, according to a nationwide member survey conducted by the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD). Dry mouth, or xerostomia, is caused by a decrease in salivary function. It affects approximately one in four Americans, placing more than 25 percent of people at risk for tooth decay.
Pharmacy Research Shows Prescribers Miss Potentially Dangerous Drug Pairs
Research led by The University of Arizona College of Pharmacy has found that medication prescribers correctly identified fewer than half of drug pairs with potentially dangerous drug-drug interactions.
These findings raise concern because of the high number of drugs Americans take: an average of 2.3 medications is prescribed during each physician office visit.
FDA Says Popular Arthritis Drugs Pose Cancer Risk to Children
U.S. federal regulators on Tuesday added stronger warnings to a group of bestselling drugs used to treat arthritis and other inflammatory diseases, saying they can increase the risk of cancer in children and adolescents.
After more than a year of review, Food and Drug Administration scientists said the drugs appear to increase the risk of cancer after they are used beyond 2 1/2 years. The agency studied several dozen reports of cancer in children taking the drugs, some of which were fatal. Half of the cases were lymphomas, a cancer that attacks the immune system.
Medicines Cause Most Accidental Poisonings in Kids
Medication overdoses send one in every 180 US 2-year-olds to the emergency department every year, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Such overdoses are responsible for more than two-thirds of all childhood poisonings.
Most of the time, these cases occur when a child finds a medicine and eats or drinks it without adult supervision, Dr. Daniel S. Budnitz, who directs the Medication Safety Program at the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality and Promotion and led the study, told Reuters Health.
Wyeth’s HRT Drug Increases Risk of Death From Lung Cancer
Women who take the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drug Prempro not only increase their risk of breast cancer, but their risk of death from lung cancer as well, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Medical Center at the University of California-Los Angeles and presented at a meeting of the American Society of Oncology.
“This is a new finding that tells us women who smoke shouldn’t take estrogen and progestin for menopause symptoms,” said study author Rowan Chlebowski.
Acid-Reducing Medicines May Lead to Dependency
Treatment with proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) for eight weeks induces acid-related symptoms like heartburn, acid regurgitation and dyspepsia once treatment is withdrawn in healthy individuals, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.
“The observation that more than 40 percent of healthy volunteers, who have never been bothered by heartburn, acid regurgitation or dyspepsia, develop such symptoms in the weeks after cessation of PPIs is remarkable and has potentially important clinical and economic implications,” said Christina Reimer, MD, of Copenhagen University and lead author of the study. “This study indicates unrecognized aspects of PPI withdrawal and is a very strong indication of a clinically significant acid rebound phenomenon that needs to be investigated in proper patient populations.”
[...] At FullOfHealth.com you’ll find a list of 8 fairly recent articles and reports that discuss the negative effects of a wide range of prescriptions drugs. [...]