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Government Databases of Adverse Drug Events

Russ Kick – The Memory Hole 2: “The governments of several countries (plus the European Union and the United Nations) have programs for medical practitioners, members of the public, and pharmaceutical companies to report “adverse events” regarding prescription and over-the-counter drugs (as well as medical devices, personal care products, and occasionally other things). As defined by the FDA, “adverse events” include hospitalization, surgical intervention, permanent disability/damage, “substantial risk of dying,” death, birth defects, seizures, and more. These reports can also cover “product use errors, product quality problems, and therapeutic failures.” Several countries have set up publicly accessible databases containing details from these reports. The full reports themselves usually aren’t there, but in some databases you’ll find details from each report, such as type of adverse event, age and gender of the patient, etc. Other databases present overall statistics but not details of individual reports. You can bet that the pharmaceutical industry is not happy that these exist…”

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