The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is trying to make theofficial descriptions of prescription drugs — which arenotoriously user-hostile — more helpful. The agency hasacknowledged the linguistic toxicity of these documents, knownas package inserts or labeling. These are the lengthy listingsof drug indications, effects, and associated risks that areroutinely included with medications when they are shipped topharmacies — and just as routinely discarded by pharmacistsbefore any drug is dispensed to patients. Physicians are morelikely to see the labeling in tiny print in the voluminous Physicians'Desk Reference (PDR), one of the . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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Dr. Avorn is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women's Hospital — both in Boston. Dr. Shrank is an instructor at Harvard Medical School and in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
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