RxISK.org — A Megaphone for Patients and Their Doctors to Help Change Drug Safety

Toronto, Canada (PRWEB) November 05, 2012

RxISK.org, the first free independent website for researching and reporting drug side effects, is now live. RxISK.org layers an easy-to-use interface over data from FDAs MedWatch system, allowing users to search the 4.1 million drug side effect reports from 2004 to June 30, 2012 and see information unavailable anywhere else, including warnings and interactions, tag clouds, heat maps, and interactive graphs. Users can search more than 35,000 prescription drug names from 103 countries.

The website has a unique reporting feature that provides users with a personalized RxISK Report linking their side effects and their meds. This report can be taken to a doctor or pharmacist to facilitate a better treatment conversation. RxISK will also show whats happening with other people taking the same drug around the world and in the users community.

As more reports are filed, the RxISK database will become the most comprehensive source of independent information on what drugs do. Many people think that if the FDA or their countrys drug regulator has approved a drug then its safe. Not always. All drugs have effects. Some good, some bad, and some deadly. But fewer than 5% of serious drug side effects those leading to hospitalization, disability, or death are reported.

Drug side effects are the fourth leading cause of death in hospitals and the number one cause in some health domains. But with such a huge data gap, it often takes a decade or more for doctors to hear about serious hazards or for country regulators to take action.

The RxISK.org website is a solution to a problem outlined by Dr. David Healy, world-renowned psychiatrist who has written extensively about the lack of data in evidence based medicine, especially in his latest book, Pharmageddon.

I didnt want to just moan about the problems we are facing with drug safety, says Healy, who with the help of like-minded colleagues, created Data Based Medicine Americas Ltd. with the purpose of developing a website that would be independent of advertising and government funding and that would get to the root of the issue.

No one knows a drugs effects like the person taking it, and yet this voice has been silenced, says Healy. As a result, medicines have become riskier rather than safer. The Avandia and Vioxx tragedies clearly show that the system is not working. The problem is huge and will only get worse.

Healy says he is also concerned about the data that is reported. What many people dont realize, he says, is that most drug side effects that are reported come from drug companies, which can manipulate and filter what they report to a country drug regulator."

RxISK.org also enables users to easily report directly to their countrys drug regulator, such as the FDA in the United States, Health Canada in Canada, and Yellow Card in the United Kingdom.

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RxISK.org — A Megaphone for Patients and Their Doctors to Help Change Drug Safety