A free hotline used to report serious medical side-effects should be more widely publicized, in television commercials and on drug labels, according to U.S health experts.
Educating patients about their medications and their devices, the possible risks and benefits involved should also be addressed, for example in a public-service announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Cheryl Holt, a professor in preventive medicine at the University of Alabama says that reporting side-effects has to be made easy for people. If it is not easy, they won’t do it.
Currently, there is a hotline that people can use: 1-800-FDA-1088. This is used to monitor possible problems with medications and devices. There is also a website, MedWatch, where both doctors and patients can report their problems.
A year ago, Congress wanted information regarding whether the information should be included in TV advertisements however, the FDA has yet to complete this study and claims that it will take up to two years to complete.
Some experts pushing for the information to be included in the TV ads say that there are only benefits while others claim this may detract from the other information in the ads and may “confuse” people. Peter Pitts, head of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest says that perhaps the hotline should be reserved for only the higher-risk products.
It remains to be concluded whether the hotline would reinforce the risks of the product, or if people would actually remember all the information in a 30 second to 1 minute commercial.
[Source: YahooNews]
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