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FDA Introduces New Web Page with Links to Key Safety Information on Prescription Drugs
Senior Journal
October 17, 2008
Senior citizens, the heaviest users of prescription drugs, and the most common victims of drug errors, can find help with making decisions about the drugs they take at a new Website created by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA says healthcare professionals, too, will find it a useful page to find a wide variety of safety information about prescription drugs.
A feature many seniors may find helpful is the index to medication guides – the paper handouts that come with many prescription medicines. It seems to some seniors that these can never be found when needed. Now, many can be accessed online to check the FDA-approved information that can help patients avoid serious adverse events.
But, there are many other key links to helpful information on the page named, “Postmarket Drug Safety Information for Patients and Providers.”
Following are descriptions of what can be found.
● Drug labeling, including patient labeling, professional labeling, and patient package inserts;
● Drugs that have a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) to ensure that their benefits outweigh their risks;
● A searchable database of postmarket studies that are required from, or agreed to by, drug companies to provide the FDA with additional information about a drug's safety, efficacy, or optimal use;
● Clinicaltrials.gov, a searchable database of clinical trials, including information about each trial's purpose, who may participate, locations, and useful phone numbers;
● Drug-specific safety information, including safety sheets with the latest information about the drug as well as related FDA press announcements, fact sheets, and drug safety
podcasts;
● Quarterly reports that list certain drugs that are being evaluated for potential safety issues, based on a review of information in the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System
(AERS);
● Warning Letters, Import Alerts, Recalls, Market Withdrawals, and Safety Alerts;
● Regulations and guidance documents;
● Consumer information about using medications safely and disposing of unused medicines;
● Instructions how to report problems to the FDA through its MedWatch program;
● Consumer articles on drug safety; and
● The FDA's response to the Institute of Medicine's 2006 report on the future of drug safety.
"By placing Web links to these up-to-date resources on a single page, we're helping consumers and health care professionals find drug safety information faster and easier," said Paul Seligman, M.D., M.P.H., associate director of Safety Policy and Communication in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
"This type of communication is aimed at helping consumers and health care professionals make well-informed decisions about medication use."
Establishing such a Web page is one of the requirements of the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007, and is among FDA's many efforts to address the safe use of drugs throughout their lifecycle.
The Web page: http://www.fda.gov/cder/drugSafety.htm
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