|
E-mail this page to a friend!
Revised Website Lists Dangerous Prescription Drugs,
Provides Alternatives
Public Citizen also publishes new book on Worst
Pills, Best Pills
Jan. 17, 2005 - Public Citizen has launched a new
Web site,
www.WorstPills.org , that provides consumers with comprehensive
information about 538 prescription drugs and warns them of 181 drugs
that are unsafe or ineffective. Consumers must subscribe to use the
database but it also has free news and information about dangerous
drugs.
The searchable, online database also provides
information about drug pricing, outlines 10 rules for safer drug use,
has monthly issues of Public Citizen's Worst Pills, Best Pills
newsletter and enables users to sign up for e-alerts about newly
discovered drug dangers.
People looking for information on the site can
search by drug, medical condition or by drug-induced disease. The Web
site contains the entire contents of the just-published edition of the
book, "Worst Pills, Best Pills," including a new chapter on dietary
supplements.
A year subscription to the Web site,
www.WorstPills.org , costs $15, which includes a monthly
e-newsletter and electronic updates about dangerous prescription drugs.
People who purchase the book can obtain a free six-month subscription to
WorstPills.org. The "Worst Pills, Best Pills" book can be purchased in
bookstores or through Public Citizen for $19.95.
The site is particularly valuable to consumers
because Public Citizen has a strong track record of identifying
dangerous drugs well before federal regulators take action to ban or put
warnings on these drugs. For example, in April 2001, Public Citizen
warned consumers against taking Vioxx because it increases the risk of
heart attack. But it wasn't until this fall that Merck pulled the drug
from shelves, citing its increased heart attack risk.
Vioxx was the ninth prescription drug to be taken off the market in the
past seven years that Public Citizen had previously warned consumers not
to use. For four of the drugs - Vioxx, Baycol, Rezulin and Serzone -
Public Citizen issued warnings more than two years before their removal
from the market.
Similarly, Public Citizen warned patients not to
use Celebrex three and a half years before the government announced that
a study showed it increased heart risks.
"As recent events have shown, the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration, which receives well over $100 million a year in
funding from the drug industry largely to review drugs more rapidly,
doesn't do a good job of protecting people from medications that can
seriously harm or kill them," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public
Citizen's Health Research Group. "We provide consumers with
indispensable and potentially life-saving information that they can't
get anywhere else - certainly not from the federal government or drug
industry."
WorstPills.org has existed since January 2003 in a
less comprehensive form; the revamped site has been redesigned and
updated with all the data in Public Citizen's newly released edition of
"Worst Pills, Best Pills," a book that has sold more than 2.2 million
copies since first being issued in 1988. The updated book, just
published by Simon & Schuster, is available in bookstores this week.
Public Citizen obtains information by gathering and
analyzing all available records about prescription drugs - sometimes
even suing the federal government to obtain them. While others have
created sites about prescription drugs, Public Citizen's is
exceptionally comprehensive, and Public Citizen is the only group to
warn consumers against using certain drugs. Public Citizen does not take
government or corporate, money, so it is a completely independent,
unbiased source of information.
"The major drug manufacturers have bombarded
consumers with misleading TV and print advertising about prescription
drugs, so consumers have a compelling need for unbiased information
about safety and effectiveness," said Public Citizen President Joan
Claybrook. "This effort is part of Public Citizen's decadeslong
commitment to protecting consumers from products that can harm them."
Prescription drug safety is becoming more relevant
as people take more medications. An estimated 100,000 people in the
United States die annually from adverse drug reactions, and nearly 1.5
million people are injured so seriously by adverse drug reactions that
they require hospitalization.
Because regulators and drug companies are slow to
recognize and react to drug dangers, Public Citizen created a "do not
use" list of drug consumers shouldn't take. Big-selling drugs still on
the market, but listed as "do not use" on WorstPills.org include:
Crestor (for high cholesterol), Darvon, Bextra and Ultracet (pain
relievers); the oral contraceptives Yasmin, Desogen and Orthocept; and
Meridia (for weight loss).
Public Citizen is a non-profit organization that,
to insure their independence, takes no corporate or government
contributions and does not accept advertising. For more information
about Public Citizen go to
www.citizen.org
Click to More Senior News on the
Front Page
Copyright: SeniorJournal.com |
