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Reports Of Bad Reactions To Prescription Drugs Jump

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 11, 2007

Just when the TV ads had you convinced that there's a drug to cure any real or imagined illness, another batch of researchers comes along to spoil the party.

According to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the number of serious adverse events and deaths attributed to prescription medications has nearly tripled since the Food and Drug Administration made it easier in 1998 to report significant side effects.

•The biggest offenders were painkillers and drugs that modify the immune system to treat arthritis.

•One- quarter of the increase could be attributed to a boost in prescriptions, and an additional 15 percent to the introduction of new biotechnology drugs since 1998. But the rest of the increase could not be explained.

• Studies have estimated that from as few as 3 percent of adverse events to a maximum of about 33 percent have been reported to the FDA.

•Five of the top six drugs causing deaths were painkillers: oxycodone, fentanyl, morphine, acetaminophen and methadone. The sixth was the anti-psychotic drug clozapine.

Nation/World, Page 10

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