Pay attention to the news on any given day and you will probably be presented with one story or another about the latest dangerous drug that is causing widespread side effects across the country. Sometimes it is not even a new drug that you are being warned not to take but instead one that has been on the market for years and years. Prozac, for example, has been around for decades and consumers have been warned that it may cause suicidal tendencies, rather than prevent them as it is supposed to do, from day one.
What is going on to allow so many dangerous drugs to hit the market so consistently? Isn’t there a government body in place to stand between consumers and pharmaceutical companies producing these unsafe medicines?
THE FDA IS JUST OK
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is tasked with approving medications that the public can come in contact with, either through a prescription or over-the-counter. But the verbiage in what they do is intentionally specific. They approve of medications, they never claim to test them.
Drug testing is almost entirely completed by the manufacturers of that same drug. They need to perform a certain number of tests and report their findings to the FDA, who will then review the data and give or decline approval. Since pharmaceutical companies won’t make money off a drug that never reaches consumers, there is an inherent and massive flaw in this system. Even if the drug manufacturers do not falsify their findings to force the drug through the system, can their results really be reliable if no third party is there to verify them as they happen?
At the end of the day, if we want to see less dangerous drugs hitting the market and hurting people, there probably needs to be a revision to the FDA’s authority. As it is now, they usually only warn consumers of problematic medicines and very rarely collect enough raw data to warrant a total recall.
Were you hurt by a dangerous drug? Call our Morgantown personal injury attorneys at 800.785.9924 to create a lawsuit in pursuit of damages.