Physicians might be over-prescribing drugs to patients

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Health professionals, as reported by a recently introduced study, might be over-prescribing drugs to their consumers, or at least some in the profession of medicine certainly seem to think so. A survey suggesting physicians not be too quick to use the prescription pad appeared in Archives of Internal Medicine, a widely recognized healthcare journal.



Don't just prescribe because someone came in



Prescriptions have to be done more conservatively, according to a broadside. Reuters explains that this was published in the medical journal Archives of Internal Medicine. There is a rise in the number of medications Americans take every year. It just keeps going up. The authors assert that because several drugs do not have a long enough history to determine their effectiveness, it leads to more complications and side effects in consumers, and it would be better to only suggest well-proven narcotics when necessary. Those patients that regularly watch TV and see the drug advertisements will often ask for the new medication while some health professionals simply see patients just to fill out their prescription.



Doctors get incentive



The medical profession is said to be plagued by pharmaceutical companies offering kickbacks to health professionals for prescribing brand-name medications. For instance, pharmaceutical business Novo Nordisk, as reported by WalletPop, settled two lawsuits this month with the Department of Justice for more than $25 million. One of the suits was about the narcotic NovoSeven which is used to treat blood disorders. Off-label purposes were being marketed. The Novo drugs, if recommended for diabetes, would give RiteAid pharmacists kickbacks in the second suit. Both lawsuits were brought because the prescriptions were written for Medicare and Medicaid consumers. EMD Serono, also as reported by WalletPop, had to settle a multimillion dollar suit this month when pharmaceutical reps were found to have offered kickbacks to health professionals for prescribing Serono's multiple sclerosis drug, Rebif, to Medicare and Medicaid patients. Illegal practices have meant that $15 billion in the last five years has been made by the United States government from AstraZeneca. Annually, AstraZeneca makes over $10 billion. Apparently paying the fines is easier than following the law for the business.



Prescription painkillers



The worst right now are the prescription painkillers. Both Hydrocodone and oxycodone is a couple of the examples of these. More are being prescribed each year. As reported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, physician prescriptions increased by six times between 1991 and 2010, and the number of overdoses from their use has tripled since 1999. About 50 percent of visits to emergency rooms between 2004 and 2009 for drug related reasons were from taking drugs as they were prescribed by health professionals. There was also, in that same time frame, an increase of 98.4 percent in the number of individuals that took prescription drugs for non-medical use and needed healthcare help. As reported by the CDC, more people perished from prescription opioid analgesic overdose than from overdose of cocaine and heroin combined.



Citations



Reuters on over prescribing

reuters.com/article/2011/06/13/us-hold-those-drugs-doctor-idUSTRE75C5K720110613



WalletPop on Novo Nordisk

walletpop.com/2011/06/13/drug-company-pays-26-7-million-to-settle-two-lawsuits/



WalletPop on EMD Serono

walletpop.com/2011/06/07/major-drug-company-pays-44-million-to-settle-kickback-claims/



Reuters on AstraZeneca

reuters.com/article/2011/05/27/astrazeneca-junkets-idUSLDE74P1YI20110527



National Institute on Drug Abuse

nida.nih.gov/infofacts/hospitalvisits.html



Centers for Disease Control

cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Poisoning/brief_full_page_text.htm
 
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