The Safe Patient Project is a Consumers Union campaign focused on eliminating medical harm, improving FDA oversight of prescription drugs and promoting disclosure laws that give information to consumers about health care safety and quality.
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Consumers Union Documents
- Consumers Union Letter to FDA Commissioner on Avandia drug safety
In light of the credible estimates of possible continuing harm to patients caused by Avandia (diabetes medication) and the fact that there are readily available alternative treatments, Consumers Union recommends that the FDA make a decision by May on whether the drug’s sales and use should continue in the U.S.
- Consumers Union petitions the FDA on drug safety
All too often, drug advertisements fail to present the benefits and risks of using prescription drugs in an accurate and balanced way.
Blog Posts
- Sick in the USA
Our bodies get sick sometimes. But if we look at the American health care system as a living body itself, we’re waiting in the ER. (A review of PBS’s Frontline film “Sick Around the World”)
- Recap of Medicare Part D in 2007
Open enrollment for your prescription drug plan under Medicare Part D ends today. Over 1,800 private insurance plans to choose from, but they all cost too much, and the costs keep climbing.
- Discount drug cards underscore need for a national solution
Some cities and counties are trying to fight high prescription drug costs, but we really need Congress to act.
- Holy prescribing
the Pope weighs in on pharmacists’ ethical duties
- New bill introduced in Senate: Drug co’s must report how much they pay docs
Last week Senator Grassley of Iowa introduced The Physician Payments Sunshine Act in the Senate that would require drug companies to…
Research and Reports
- Drug Safety: FDA Has Conducted More Foreign Inspections and Begun to Improve Its Information on Foreign Establishments, but More Progress Is Needed
The GAO has written a report on the FDA’s progress on foreign drug inspections since 2008. In 2008, the GAO found that FDA had inspected relatively few foreign establishments and had inaccurate information in its databases from 2002 through 2007.
- Drug shortages: National survey reveals high level of frustration, low level of safety
ISMP survey: More than 1,000 near misses, errors, and adverse outcomes due to drug shortages in the US.