Eating Disorders

Paul Pioneer Press 'Pill for every ill' creates new risks !

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26, 2006 'Pill for every ill' creates new risks Minnesota lawmakers seek disclosure of trials for FDA-approved drugs BY JEREMY OLSON Pioneer Press America is manic about medication.

Initial hype and hope over the promise of new prescription drugs can turn to outrage and lawsuits when risks are revealed.

Certain painkillers cause heart problems.

An impotency drug is linked to vision loss.

Antidepressants increase the risk of suicide.

A Parkinson's drug seems to encourage compulsive gambling.

And a sleep aid can cause sleep eating.

In some cases, these rare risks are known but buried in the packaging.

In others, the risks don't come out until the drugs are broadly used in the marketplace.

Or drug companies withhold evidence of risks.

Minnesota lawmakers on Tuesday proposed one solution: a state law that would require drug-makers to publicly disclose results of clinical trials conducted before and after drugs are federally approved for sale.

Will more information make a difference in a harried environment in which patients seek quick-fix pills, doctors are eager to prescribe and pharmacists don't tell patients the pros and cons?

"As a society, we have this mentality of a pill for ...

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