On September 2nd, Propagation of Safe Medication in Hubei Province launched in Wuhan. Li yuanqi, director of Adverse Reaction Monitoring Centre of Hubei Food and Drug Administration reminded the public should avoid four mistakes about medication in daily life, which will increase extra risk instead of treatment and prevention.
The most common mistake is "over-medication" for quick recovery, which means using excessive amount of one species or several medicines simultaneously used without considering drugs incompatibility. Li said, healing any disease takes time. "Over-medication" is not only "haste makes waste", but also add burden to liver or kidney against health, even cause security risks.
The second mistake is “prefer new drugs to old ones” which means many people have blind faith in new drugs. Li said, except those annulled by Government, the efficacy and safety of every medicine, no matter new or old, is confirmed. Regarding to the safety, more unknown risks is related with new drugs rather than older ones. After a long period of risk monitoring and re-evaluation, risk avoidance approaches of old medicines are relatively more perfect.
The third mistake is “prefer expensive to cheap ones”, which means many people think the higher price, the better curative effect. Li said the curative effect depends on whether remedy is right for the illness, rather than the price.
The forth mistake is "following the ads." Li said, advertising is a part of promotions, but some companies issued ads without the approval of authorities, or altered the contents after approval. Many ads seriously mislead patients. He reminded, due to the limited information provided by advertising drugs, information about drug safety should gained from instructions or licensed pharmacist and physicians.
Source: XinhuaNet.com
Date: Sept. 3rd, 2010