1.5 MILLION Preventable Medication Errors Made Per Year!

Can you afford to be part of that statistic? No one can–but the good news is that these errors are preventable.  If you take the time to know the facts about what you are putting into your body, you can save yourself from a life-threatening situation.

Getting an informative nutritional consultation and learning about the vitamins that specifically YOUR body needs and taking those vitamins regularly can boost your immune system to its maximum potential, resulting in fewer sick days and simultaneously, less prescription medication.

Prescriptions Filled Without Warnings of Side Effects and Other Dangers

Of the 1.5 million preventable medication errors that occur every year, 500,000 are in hospitals. More than one in five – over 100,000 – of those hospital patients die from the drug error. Death statistics aren’t available for the other million medication errors, but a new study reveals that many of the errors and deaths may be caused by the fact that pharmacies sometimes don’t even include warnings about the drugs’ safety.

When you fill a prescription in a pharmacy, the labels on the bottles do not tell you the side effects, interactions with other drugs, medical conditions that make taking the drug unsafe or other vital warnings. It is required by federal law that all people get this information when they pick up their pills at the pharmacy. To comply with the law, pharmacies include an information sheet in the bag with the pills.

Consumer Reports conducted an investigation on prescriptions for Warfarin to see how many pharmacies actually include the information sheet.

Warfarin is a good example of a drug for which this information sheet is vital. It is an anticoagulant that can interact with some foods, other prescription drugs and even vitamins, and has a long list of side effects including:

• Severe bleeding
• Black stool or bleeding from the rectum
• Skin conditions such as hives, a rash or itching
• Swelling of the face, throat, mouth, legs, feet or hands
• Bruising that comes about without an injury you remember
• Chest pain or pressure
• Nausea or vomiting
• Fever or flu-like symptoms
• Joint or muscle aches
• Diarrhea
• Difficulty moving
• Numbness of tingling in any part of your body
• Painful erection lasting four hours or longer
• Skin tissue death (necrosis) and gangrene requiring amputation

It is also not recommended for people with a variety of physical conditions.
The researchers went to the pharmacies in five of the biggest retail chains and found that four out of five did not provide the FDA-approved medication guide for Warfarin.
When Consumer Reports tried to contact the four offending stores, two didn’t even respond. The other two said the warnings are automatically printed out but, obviously, were not put in the bag with the pills and given to the customer.
Eventually, all the pharmacies did provide the materials they give out to patients, but not all of the materials complied with the law, and some contained conflicting information – whether or not the drug is safe with alcohol, for example.
Drugs are not always necessary – you should check with your health care practitioner to see if there are safer solutions – but if you have to take a drug, make sure you get all the information you need to protect yourself.

Source: WebMD, http://www.webmd.com/news/20110628/some-drugs-sold-without-safety-information; Consumer Reports, http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/august/health/what-drug-labels-dont-tell-you/overview/index.htm

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