Let The Patient Beware

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WASHINGTON, D.C.: Even though American doctors and hospitals spend $75 billion every year treating patients who suffer life-threatening reactions to prescription drugs, Americans often can get better information on the snack food and cars they buy than the medicines they take. Even so, the Senate is debating a provision to block an FDA plan to make more complete drug information available. "The nation spends as much to cure the illnesses caused by prescription drugs as we spend on the drugs themselves," said Senator Edward Kennedy, who is fighting to preserve the FDA initiative. Fewer than half of those using prescription medicines know much more than how often the average person should take them, according to the American Pharmaceutical Association. Yet many serious overdoses (and deaths) occur in elderly patients or others who cannot handle the typical amount of a drug, who do not know that they are allergic to it, or who inadvertently create toxic combinations by taking different drugs concurrently. The FDA's proposed "MedGuides" would alert people to such common hazards as taking the allergy medicine Seldane with the antibiotic erythromycin, or from simultaneously taking digitalis and the heart medicine Cardizem. Opponents of the bill say doctors, drug companies and pharmacists can monitor the hazards adequately without new regulations. "Most people are certainly already aware of the potential for interaction between two or more prescription drugs," says TIME's Alice Park. "Physicians and pharmacists are also aware of such conflicts, and have the education and computer systems which can red-flag troubling prescriptions. I'm not sure patients need to be targeted with this ination." Trouble is, many of them are not keeping their doctors or pharmacists informed about all of the medicines they are taking. -- Terence Nelan