Posted on 09/11/2007 6:49:18 PM PDT by neverdem
Seniors are 12.6% of population but 33.6% of serious adverse drug events
Senior citizens represent a disproportionate share of adverse drug events as the number of serious outcomes reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more than doubled between 1998 and 2005, as did deaths associated with adverse drug events, according to a report in the September 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
A serious adverse drug event, as defined by the FDA, means an adverse event that resulted in death, a birth defect, disability, hospitalization, or was life-threatening or required intervention to prevent harm, according to background information in the article.
Such events are voluntarily reported to the FDA through its Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) and known as "MedWatch" reports. The reports come to the FDA directly or through drug manufacturers, who are then required to forward them.
Thomas J. Moore, A.B., of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, Huntingdon Valley, Penn., and colleagues analyzed serious adverse drug events reported to the FDA through AERS from 1998 through 2005.
During this period, a total of 467,809 serious adverse events were reported. The annual number of reports increased 2.6-fold between 1998 and 2005, from 34,966 to 89,842. The number of fatal adverse drug events increased from 5,519 to 15,107 in the same time frame, a 2.7-fold increase.
"The overall relative increase was four times faster than the growth in total U.S. outpatient prescriptions, which grew in the same period from 2.7 billion to 3.8 billion," the authors write.
A total of 1,489 drugs were associated with adverse events, but a subset of 51 drugs that each had 500 or more reports in any year accounted for 203,957 or 43.6 percent of the total adverse event reports in the study...
(Excerpt) Read more at seniorjournal.com ...
Sounds like an excellent opportunity for trial lawyers.
There are seniors out there with a half dozen serious medical conditions who are on a dozen or more medicines. It’s not surprising. Pharmacy computers flag serious reactions - which is why it’s important to get all your meds at one chain...and if you switch pharmacies, to let your knew one know exactly what drugs you are on (same thing goes for doctors you go to).
I’m a little stumped by the list. Tylenol is listed and nobody dies of Tylenol unless you mix it with alcohol and your liver fails, or take an overdose. A doctor once told me that the number of people allergic to Tylenol is about the same as the number allergic to water (he was being sarcastic of course, but I don’t think people are having anaphylactic responses to it.)
I have MS and my disease modifying drug (Betaseron) made both lists. Yet I correspond with lots of MS patients who take the same drug, and I’ve never heard of someone dying from the drug. Most of the adverse reactions that people experience are flu like symptoms or site reactions (which are irritating but harmless.)
Anyhoo, it’s rather “interesting” to know that my drug is dangerous...oh well, off to take my shot. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.
Yeah, right.....
I didn't see any figures regarding overall usage of meds by age; seniors BY FAR take more meds than children, so it's an unfair comparison...
If you look up acetaminophen, i.e. Tylenol, you find that it's in about two dozen drugs. Folks are taking it in two or more drugs for pain unaware that they are overdosing on acetaminophen.
>>>Tylenol is listed and nobody dies of Tylenol unless you mix it with alcohol and your liver fails, or take an overdose. <<<
Tylenol (acetominophen) is actually the leading cause of acute liver failure in the United States. Many times the patient is taking another medication that also contains acetominophen in it and then takes Tylenol on top of this.
About half of these deaths due to acetominophen are suicide attempts. The other half are accidental.
But you are right: you’re not going to die from acetominophen for the most part unless you overdose. Overdosing can lead to kidney and liver failure, though. The problem is that people often think that Tylenol is just harmless and are far too willing to overdose themselves with it.
The people I know who go to the VA have serious problems with drug toxicity. It is just one benefit of free medical care.
Biggest reason for this is that take so many drugs and their health is at risk just breathing.
Over-medicating is a major issue. I was working with a family doc recently, and we had a patient come in on 45 different medications.
We ended up stripping away 27 of them, and would you believe the patient made a remarkable recovery after that?
I may be entering the medical profession, but let’s be honest: the human body was created to run on its own. Our lifestyles and aging in general may throw things out of wack a bit, but there’s not reason to ever need that many crutches.
I have had some friends that didn’t know (actually weren’t informed by their docs or pharmacists) that pain meds like Percocet, Vicodin, etc. also had tylenol in them, and they were taking Tylenol along with the pain meds. Definitely need for better education. I just looked at a bottle of Percocet I have leftover from a surgery last year. Nothing on the bottle warns against taking it with acetaminophen.
Congo confirms deadly illness outbreak as Ebola
OECD warns against biofuels subsidies
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
A good rule of thumb is to ALWAYS read the generic names on the bottle. Percocet consists of acetominophen and oxycodone, for instance.
Compare your medications and keep a running list and make sure you’re not taking the same medication from two different pills. Your doctor will catch that most of the time, and if they don’t, the pharmacist usually will. But it’s important to keep tabs with what’s going into your body.
Thank you for your dedication to ping list. I am printing off the article to take to my Older Adult nursing class. Appreciate your work.
#5 Acetamenophine (Tylenol)
They’ve already been sued from what I’ve heard.
Marking
Mixing it with large amounts of soda pop and vitamin C will also KO your liver.
Thanks for the compliment.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.