- One in five new drugs has serious side effects that do
not show up until well after the medicine has received government approval,
according to a study published today.
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- The researchers went so far as to suggest that doctors
should prescribe older drugs when possible, unless the new one is truly
superior.
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- "It's like playing Russian roulette when a doctor
prescribes a newly approved drug that doesn't have a big
breakthrough,"
said Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen Health Research Group.
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- Researchers said the findings should prompt the Food
and Drug Administration to consider raising its threshold for approving
new drugs when alternatives exist.
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- The findings are based on an analysis of drugs approved
from 1975 through 1999.
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- More than 10 percent were later given a
serious-side-effect
warning or taken off the market for safety reasons.
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- The study appears in today's Journal of the American
Medical Association. An accompanying editorial by two FDA experts said
the analysis overstates the problem.
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- http://www.suntimes.com/output/health/cst-nws-drugs01.html
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