The Pharmacist - Unsafe At Any Dose

The last twenty-nine years have seen several important prescription medications that were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and then subsequently withdrawn from the marketplace because they caused excessive deaths, heart attacks, liver, heart, kidney, other organ damage, and many other serious morbidities. When they were initially approved, the pharmaceutical companies who manufactured them provided the FDA with 'proof' of efficacy with limited but acceptable side effect profiles. Physicians were also given the same assurances regarding these same medications and that they could then prescribe them with the knowledge that their patients would be safe from unwarranted deleterious side effects. In essence, what was forged was a medical contract between pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, and the physicians, promising the American people that they would greatly benefit from their prescribed medications, experience less illness, feel better, live longer, and, as a result, enjoy a measurably enhanced quality of life. After all, this is what we all believe and expect when we leave the doctor's office with prescription in hand and then proceed to our pharmacy.

This is not what happened with these particular approved drugs. Too many patients did not greatly benefit from their prescribed medications, did not experience less illness, did not feel better, did not live longer, and did not enjoy a measureable enhanced quality of life. Instead, patients became sicker and sicker while many died. What happened, who failed, and who broke the contract?