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Previous Volume 349:303-305 July 17, 2003 Number 3 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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To the Editor: Gandhi and colleagues (April 17 issue)¹ report that an adverse drug event occurred in 25 percent of outpatients who received at least one prescription during a four-week period. Establishing a cause–effect relation, however, represents the biggest problem in the analysis of drug-induced disease. To attribute an adverse event to a drug, there must be a plausible temporal relation to drug administration; in addition, the event must not be explainable by concurrent disease and must cease when the drug is discontinued and recur on a rechallenge that is conducted according to a satisfactory procedure. Otherwise, the cause–effect relation . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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