By JOANNA SCHAFFHAUSEN
Sept. 22, 2006
DRUG SAFETY REPORT The National Academies' Institute of Medicine has released a report that makes suggestions for improving the safety of medications already on the market. The Institute of Medicine recommends that drugs should be approved only for five-year periods to allow for ongoing safety review, that recently approved drugs should be marked with a black triangle so that consumers know the drug does not have a long history of safety, and that drug advertisements to consumers should be banned during this initial period. The report also says that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should be granted more power to enforce laws surrounding drug safety and marketing.
YOUNG PEOPLE MISUSING ADHD DRUGS Nearly 8,000 people, many of them children, were treated in the emergency room in 2004 for health problems resulting from use of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder stimulant medications such as Ritalin, Concerta and Adderal. According to new government data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, overall rates of ER visits were higher among 12- to 17-year-olds than among 18- to 24-year-olds, and younger people taking ADHD medications recreationally were actually more likely to need emergency medical attention than their older counterparts. Young people in the ER because they were abusing ADHD drugs also tended to have other drugs in their systems — 68 percent were also on alcohol, an illegal drug or another prescription drug.
STAT is a brief look at the latest medical research and is compiled by Joanna Schaffhausen, who holds a doctorate in behavioral neuroscience. She works in the ABC News Medical Unit, evaluating medical studies, abstracts and news releases.
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