Prescription-Drug-Induced Violence

Prescription-Drug-Induced Violence Medicine's Best Kept Secret?


Data Based Medicine Americas Ltd. announces free online tool to show possible links between prescription drugs and violence.










Can prescription drugs cause you to kill someone? “Absolutely”, says Healy.

Toronto, Canada (PRWEB) November 12, 2012
RxISK.org,
the first free independent website for researching and reporting
prescription drug side effects, has added a Violence Zone to demonstrate
and collect data on the links between prescription drugs and violent
thoughts and behavior — from mild to suicidal or homicidal.

“Violence and other potentially criminal behavior caused by prescription drugs are medicine’s best kept secret,” says Dr. David Healy,
a world-renowned psychiatrist who has written extensively about the
lack of data in evidence-based medicine, including in his latest book, Pharmageddon.

Healy says this is a global issue, with medical, legal, ethical, and
profound public policy dimensions. “Never before in the fields of
medicine and law have there been so many events with so much concealed
data and so little focused expertise.”

Can prescription drugs cause you to kill someone? “Absolutely”, says Healy.

The Violence Zone allows users to enter the name of a prescription
drug and see the side effects relating to violent acts and thoughts that
have been reported to the FDA’s MedWatch System since 2004, as well as
to RxISK, for more than 35,000 drug names from 103 countries. The data
is presented in tables, tag clouds, heat maps, and interactive graphs,
showing what’s happening with other people taking the same drug around
the world and in a user’s community.

Users can then select the effect(s) they are experiencing and click
on Report a Drug Side Effect to complete a report. This will add their
anonymized experience to the RxISK database so that others can benefit
from this information, as well as provide them with a personalized RxISK
Report linking their symptoms and meds, which they can take to their
doctor or pharmacist to facilitate a better treatment conversation.

“We are collecting this critical information directly from patients
one report at a time,” says Healy. “As more reports are filed, the RxISK
database will become the most comprehensive source of independent
information on what prescription drugs do and their capacities to
relieve aggression or to trigger violence.”

Dr. Dee Mangin, Data Based Medicine’s Chief Medical Officer and a
professor and Director of Research in the Department of Public Health
and General Practice at the University of Otago in New Zealand, says,
“Violence has not traditionally been seen as a medical problem, but the
range of drugs now linked to violence has grown, including drugs used in
smoking cessation, dermatology, asthma, weight loss, insomnia, and
behavior.”

Mangin says some drugs can also cause vivid, frightening dreams.
“It’s important to find out if there is a connection between violent
dreams or thoughts and your prescriptions so that adjustments can be
made before you act on them.”


Source:-
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/11/prweb10120425.htm