Drug Side Effects ignored by Doctors

Side effects from prescription medicines plague one in four patients, and when they surface, most doctors fail to act, U.S. researchers found recently.

The findings, from a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, sound an alarm to the millions of Americans who take prescription drugs each year. Some 3.34 billion prescriptions were dispensed in the United States in 2002.

"It's a problem that is common, in many cases the impact could be prevented or reduced, and it has a large impact on patients," said Tejal Gandhi, an internist at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston and the chief author of the study.

The findings of the Gandhi team were based on prescriptions given in outpatient clinics in Boston.

Among the side effects, 13 percent were serious. In preventable cases, patients were given the wrong drug 45 percent of the time.

The drugs that posed the greatest risk of side effects were the serotonin-reuptake inhibitor class of antidepressants, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs often given for joint pain, and calcium-channel blockers used to treat high blood pressure.

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