Medicine and health care have changed dramatically over the years. The access to medical information has become much easier. Prescription drugs are advertised virtually every where. Prescription drug companies are required to list side effects and warnings to inform consumers. A recent report claimed that they are not completely forthcoming with all of the information. Dr. O’Toole advises patients who are scheduled for surgery with him to follow all preoperative and postoperative instructions that are given. This includes recommended prescription medication. Some patients may feel comfortable switching prescription medications for older medications or in some cases completely different medications. The patient may have a friend who recently had an abdominoplasty or breast augmentation and it may seem harmless to use her left over medications instead of filling new prescriptions. This is not advised. Patients should consider all surgeries and prescription medications as serious. Prescription drug decisions should only be made under the prescribing physician’s care. According to The Los Angeles Times most pharmaceutical ads in biomedical journals may not be up to snuff as far as Food and Drug Administration guidelines are concerned, a study finds.
Only about 18% of the ads complied with all 20 FDA guidelines and about 58% didn’t calculate serious risks of the drugs, including death.About 49% of the ads may not have adhered to at least one FDA-ordered item and about 33% might not have complied because of incomplete information. About 48% didn’t have references that could be confirmed and almost 29% couldn’t adequately quantify effectiveness.
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