THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508260005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
In the old days, when pharmacist Steve Buchberg's father was a pharmacist, doctors wrote most prescriptions in Latin.
Back in the '30s and '40s, recalled Buchberg, owner of Colley Discount Pharmacy in Norfolk, doctors didn't want patients to know drugs' side effects, for fear people would shy from using them. Often, Buchberg added, even doctors were unaware of all the effects.
Things change, but slowly.
Although we've progressed from the time when doctors always knew best and patients were kept in the dark, even today 45 percent of patients get no written information about their medicines other than dosage instructions such as ``take one a day.''
That's the word from the Food and Drug Administration, which recently announced a program to push pharmacists to distribute patient-information leaflets for every prescription they dispense.
The program, which is voluntary, is to take effect after 90 days for public comment.
``The (FDA) goal'' reported Associated Press, ``is to have at least 75 percent of Americans receive adequate information about prescription drugs, in layman's terms, by 2000, and 95 percent by 2006.''
You, of course, can obtain the necessary drug information today, simply by going only to pharmacists who provide the written information. More than half do. In fact, with today's computers, providing the information is child's play for a pharmacist.
Obtaining drugs with no accompanying description of side effects makes no more sense than buying a handgun without receiving instruction in its proper use.
If you take the acne drug Accutane, you need to know it can cause birth defects. If you use the sleeping pill Halcion, you should know it can cause short-term memory loss. What? Short-term memory loss!
The FDA plans to require that pharmacists provide the drug information beginning in 2000, if it is not provided in three-fourths of prescriptions by then.
Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen complained that pharmacists will simply wait till 1999 before providing the information.
But, again, you don't have to wait. Demand the information you need to take prescription drugs safely. All that's at stake are your health and your life. by CNB