I had occasion to have a conversation with Dr. Harold Silverman, editor of The Pill Book – a perennially popular resource for consumers to learn about the medicines they are taking, now in its 12th edition.
We of course talked about the book and some of its aspects that make it so useful for people, in spite of the advent of the Internet. We also talked a bit about the development of new drugs and whether or not the FDA has become too risk averse.
My pharmacist recently pointed me towards a service iguard.org that gives out risk ratings and alerts for my drugs – i.e. Lipitor is Blue, Prednisone is Orange etc. I’m sure this is only the tip of the iceberg.
I think we will see a wave of much more consumer oriented activity coming from the private sector, especially seeing that the FDA has been so slow in addressing this.