Medication side effects

Sickness and death due to medical drugs have been estimated to cost more than $136 billion a year in the US/ Approximately 30% of hospital patients experience adverse drug effects, and anywhere between 3%-28% of all hospital admissions are due to medical drugs. Adverse drug effects may account for up to 140,000 deaths annually in the USA.

During a 14 day study carried out at 33 French teaching hospitals, and general hospitals, 100 patients were admitted for adverse prescription drug reaction. 9 of the 100 admissions resulted from gastrointestinal bleeding caused by NSAID's (analgesic pain relievers), and 13 were haemorrhaging due to anticoagulant drugs (blood thinning) drugs. Of the 193 different drugs associated with these admissions, cardiac stimulants and antiarrhythmic drugs were identified as the most common.

In a study of elderly patients, 66.7% of the ADEs were associated with cardiovascular, metabolic, renal or neuropsychological symptoms. The drugs involved were mainly cardiovascular (43.7%) and psychotropic (31.2%) drugs. One or more risk factors (mainly DDIs and/or interfering acute diseases) were recorded in 81.2% of ADEs.

With regard to the prescription of the anti-depressant drug Luvox to teenagers in the USA, the American Journal of Psychiatry (September 1991), reported: "Our observations confirm the efficacy of fluvoxamine [Luvox] in the treatment of depression, but suggest that this drug can induce mania in some patients when it is given at normal doses". Research carried out at the Hadassah-Hebrew University School of Medicine in Jerusalem and published in 1993 also of this side effect.