Misadventures in medicating

From the Victoria (BC) Times Colonist:
Many of the patients filling Canada's crowded hospitals are there because of side effects and other problems with their medication -- and most of those drug "misadventures" could be prevented, a new study suggests.

Almost one in four admissions to the internal-medicine ward of British Columbia's largest hospital was the result of adverse drug reactions, doctors prescribing the wrong medicine or similar glitches, the study found.

The lead researcher says he expects similar results from a follow-up look at emergency cases that has just been completed. ...more

Wrong Rx more likely from busy or older docs

From the Globe and Mail:
Doctors who are overworked, have been trained in other countries or who have been practising longer are more likely to prescribe antibiotics inappropriately, according to new Canadian research that highlights a major problem facing public-health officials.

The study, published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, assessed the prescribing habits of hundreds of Quebec doctors over an eight-year period, identifying those who prescribe antibiotics in ways that can lead to drug resistance.

With more illness-causing bacteria growing immune to treatments, and fewer new bacteria-fighting drugs being developed, public-health officials fear that one day there will be no effective way to halt the spread of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis.

"At some point, we will run out of therapies," said Genevieve Cadieux, the study's co-author and a researcher at McGill University's department of epidemiology and biostatistics. "The most daunting concern is that we're not going to have effective drugs to treat illnesses." ...more