Every single year, the British population is reduced by people dying in their hundreds because of the serious side-effects of drugs prescribed by GPs and over-the-counter medicines readily available through high street pharmacies. The frightening fact is that deaths from adverse reactions to prescription drugs have more than doubled in ten years.
We assume our doctors are fully aware of the dangers of prescribing without full knowledge of side effects on a particular person but we know that they cannot store that much information and mistakes will be made.
For several years now, people have been encouraged to take more responsibility for their own healthcare and wellbeing - perhaps patients should also be educated to better detect these potentially fatal side-effects themselves?
Or even more sensibly, perhaps the public should look to find drug-free relief for their problems wherever possible!
Between 1996 and 2006 there was a:
155% increase in reported fatal adverse drug reaction from 382 to 973
214% increase in all reported serious adverse drug reactions from 5,022 to 15,760
7% increase in all reported adverse drug reactions from 17,107 to 18,378
51% increase in prescriptions from 498 million to 752 million
10,000 deaths annually from adverse reactions
5,600 hospital beds at any one time are occupied by patients with adverse drug reactions
The cost of adverse drug reactions to the NHS each year is £466 million
Source: MHRA
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