The Washington Post published an article on August 29, 2011 drawn from research conducted by Consumer Reports staff. Consumer Reports staff carefully examined the medication inserts that are tucked inside the bag when you have a prescription filled. The results were startling and disappointing.
The article cautioned that some pharmacies failed to provide customers with accurate, thorough and readable information regarding the prescriptions they dispense. According to the article there are some half million “preventable outpatient medication errors” every year. They can’t prove that incomplete or difficult to read safety information inserts contribute to these errors, but they don’t help.
Consumer Reports staff filled prescriptions at a number of pharmacies and found that “critical information was confusing, misleading, buried or absent.” In fact, the pharmacies didn’t adhere to the FDA-approved medication guide. The FDA found that “only 75 percent of the leaflets included with prescriptions meet the agency’s minimum recommended criteria for usefulness.”
The article caution that consumers should not rely on the inserts alone, but rather they speak directly with the pharmacist or their own physician.
While nothing takes the place of talking to your physician or pharmacist, two “user friendly” websites can help you frame your questions:
MedLine Plus
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginformation.html
WebMD
http://www.webmd.com/
The entire Washington Post article may be read on-line at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/consumer-reports-pharmacies-dont-always-provide-required-drug-warnings/2011/07/18/gIQAdIminJ_story.html
