This news should receive front-page exposure all across America, because it involves hundreds of millions of Americans.  We’re talking about the extent to which your safety is presently at stake.  This will never happen . . . because of vested interests, maybe?  You’re lucky to find it in scantily read science news sites.  Don’t expect either your doctor or your pharmacist to call it to your attention, either. 

At issue is the recent research coming out of the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy. Their study found that medication prescribers correctly identified fewer than half of drug pairs with potentially dangerous interactions. 

The UA researchers sent a questionnaire to 12,500 prescribers (physicians, physician’s assistants, and nurse practitioners) in the United States.  They were asked to classify 14 drug pairs according to whether or not dangerous interactions were possible.  Sadly, fewer than 8% of those contacted even bothered to respond to the questionnaire. 

Those 950 respondents correctly classified only 42.7% of the combinations. Out of the 14 pairs, four of them were potentially dangerous—the majority of prescribers correctly identified only ONE of those four pairs. 

Perhaps even more frightening, half of the 14 pairs were met with shrugs from over one-third of the respondents who answered simply, "not sure." 

That’s hardly reassuring! Patients have little choice but to trust their doctors to write out that prescription with their health in mind, and to trust the pharmacist to fill the script, accurately.  But they have no way to be  certain whether or not it will interact with other drugs they may be taking!  These are not obscure interactions being discussed here, either.  While some of them are very common others are very, very dangerous.

For example, researchers noted that taking sildenafil (Viagra) and nitrates, which happened to be one of the pairs on the questionnaire, can be life-threatening.

It just goes to show—the only person really looking out for your health is YOU.  You’ve heard it said that you should let your doctor know about all the medications you are taking, but that still might not be enough, according to the study. A little extra research on your part might also be in order.

Ref: University of Arizona, College of Pharmacy (2009, July 16). Pharmacy Research Shows Prescribers Miss Potentially Dangerous Drug Pairs. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 6, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713160518.htm