Doctors Concerned About Safety of Prescription Drugs
Although this was published earlier this month, I just came across it. This article indicates that doctors are indeed concerned about new drugs and this is indicated by the drop in prescriptions for antidepressants and COX-2 inhibitors.
Survey Reveals Seven Out of 10 Doctors Concerned About Safety of Prescription Medicines
I know from personal experience, my family physician is very hesitant to prescribe any new drugs, especially those that have been on the market less than one year. He prefers to wait and see if there are any problems. Now this does suppose that any problems would be revealed in the first year and that may not be the case. As always, it’s a mater of balancing the risk vs reward.
Also generics are generally looked upon as safe since they have stood the test of time. The reasoning goes that having been around for some time, any problems would have been identified by now. I tend to agree with this but still think it needs to be said that no drug is without risks. Also, second and third generation drugs (i.e. newer ones) sometimes have less side effects. The best know case are the antihistamines. The first generation such as Benadryl (diphenhydramine) caused drowsiness. However, newer antihistamines such as Claritin (loratidine), Zyrtec (cetirizine), and Allegra (fexofenadine) did not show this tendency.
Another interesting fact was looking at various groups views towards new drugs; 33% of physicians thought new or recently approved drugs were less safe, 29% of consumers felt this way, and 26% of pharmacists feel that way.
Technorati Tags: drug safety
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