Reporting Prescription Side Effects

This hour on Focus, we talk about how researchers are working to use internet data to better detect adverse drug interactions. Earlier this month, scientists at Microsoft, Stanford University and Columbia University used online searches to detect unreported drug side effects, and they identified several unreported side effects before the Food and Drug Administration’s warning system did. During this episode of Focus, host Jim Meadows talks with Dr. James Rybacki, a pharmacist who has written extensively about prescriptions, about how the FDA currently tracks drug interactions and negative side effects and how computers could improve the process. We also talk about the testing processes that go into FDA approval and about the differences between adverse effects and prescription side effects. 

Rybacki is the author of "The Essential Guide to Prescription Drugs." Find more information about him and his guidebook here.