Consumer Reports has published a valuable article identifying common prescription drugs that can be dangerous for older patients. Healthcare consumers over age 65 are more than twice as likely to suffer from adverse drug reactions; the publication lists the following drugs as posing a high enough risk that they should be avoided if possible: Antianxiety [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Painkillers'
A list of dangerous drugs — and safer alternatives — for seniors
October 20th, 2008 · 1 Comment
Tags: Ambien · Anti Depression Medication · Anxiety · Ativan · Depression Medication · Drug safety · Flomax · Paxil · Prozac · Valium · Xanax · Zoloft · Zyrtec
It’s time to put an end to our “prescription drug culture”
October 10th, 2008 · No Comments
I stumbled across this while reading Gawker: “Teen socialite” Peaches Geldof says the staff at the fashion magazine Nylon prefer prescription drugs over illegal drugs – What’s the drug of choice at Nylon? “Klonopin.” Peaches was definitely the talky one. Why? “It’s just a very large prescription drug culture.”… This confirms our highly anecdotal evidence [...]
Tags: Healthcare100 · OxyContin · Pharma bloggers · Pharmaceutical companies · Pharmaceutical marketing · Prescription drug abuse · Prescription drugs · Purdue Pharmaceutical · Xanax
Antidepressants are the most searched-for prescription drug brands online
June 5th, 2008 · 4 Comments
Consumers search for antidepressants online more than any other class of drug, according to data from comScore. In a recent study of 500,000 search queries, five of the 15 most frequently searched prescription brands were for depression. This is in keeping with our own search results at eDrugSearch.com. Here are those five medications, in order [...]
Tags: Cymbalta · Effexor · Paxil · Prescription drugs · Prescriptions · Xanax
Drug commercial parodies — a roundup
April 26th, 2008 · No Comments
As you know, we like to post links to parodies of pharmaceutical commercials. Rather than publish these individually, though, I thought I’d provide all these links in a single roundup post. Here are some popular parodies of current drug ads — one for each drug. (Be warned that some of them are a little off-color.) [...]
Tags: Cialis · Drug commercial parodies · Lipitor · Mirapex · Viagra · Zoloft
Did doctors illegally prescribe pills to Heath Ledger?
February 29th, 2008 · 1 Comment
Doctors in California and Texas are currently under investigation for illegally prescribing Ledger the painkillers Oxycontin and Vicodin, according to reports. Whether the individual doctors did anything wrong, however, patients can get in trouble when they go to multiple doctors — which is increasingly the case in today’s world. That’s why it is important to [...]
Tags: Health 2.0 · OxyContin · Prescription drug abuse · Vicodin
The dangers of anti-depressants
January 20th, 2008 · No Comments
Fox News ran a provocative story Thursday slamming Big Pharma for overhyping the benefits — and downplaying the dangers — of anti-depressants such as Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac and Effexor. You can read the transcript here or watch the piece below. Frankly, it’s surprising to me to see this kind of anti-Big Pharma slant from Fox [...]
Tags: eDrugSearch.com · Effexor · Paxil · Prescription drug abuse · Prescription drugs · Prescriptions · Prozac · Zoloft
Abilify: No. 1 and climbing
November 25th, 2007 · 3 Comments
The most searched-for drug on eDrugSearch.com for the past two months has been Abilify, which treats the symptoms of psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Initially approved in November 2002, more than 12.5 million prescriptions have been written for Abilify in the United States as of June 2007. Expect those numbers to continue [...]
Tags: Abilify · Depression Medication · Lexapro · Paxil · Prescriptions · Prozac · Zoloft
Top 25 prescription drug searches
October 18th, 2007 · 1 Comment
We thought it would be of interest to pharma bloggers and others to share a monthly list of the most-searched-for medications and medical conditions on eDrugSearch.com. Here are the top 25 searches for the month of September: 1. High Blood Pressure 2. Abilify 3. Provigil 4. Yasmin 5. Lipitor 6. Lamisil 7. Synthroid 8. Levitra [...]
Tags: Abilify · Crestor · eDrugSearch.com · Lamisil · Levitra · Lipitor · Meridia · Plavix · Prescription drugs · Prescriptions · Provigil · Synthroid · Topamax · Viagra · Vytorin · Xenical · Yasmin · Zetia · Zoloft
Better nutrition now, fewer pills later
September 26th, 2007 · No Comments
In this 10-minute video, Natalie, a lovely Austin, Texas-based nutritionist, discusses how to improve your diet so you can take fewer statins (cholesterol drugs like Simvastatin), proton pump inhibitors (drugs for heartburn and acid reflux like Nexium and Prilosec) and antidepressants (Prozac, Zoloft, etc.)
Tags: Nexium · Prilosec · Prozac · Simvastatin · Zoloft
Hydrocodone supplants OxyContin as the new “hillbilly heroin”
August 23rd, 2007 · 1 Comment
A few years ago, OxyContin was all over the news because of Rush Limbaugh’s much-publicized addiction — and also because its illicit use was so widespread in Appalachia that it was known as “hillbilly heroin.” We’re not sure about Rush, but apparently the hillibillies have moved on — to hydrocodone. According to the AP: As [...]
Tags: Hydrocodone · OxyContin · Painkillers · Prescription drug abuse · Prescription drugs