Herxheimer A, Crombag MR, Alves TL: Direct patient reporting of adverse drug reactions. A twelve-country survey & literature review. Health Action International (HAI) (Europe). Amsterdam; 2010.
http://www.haiweb.org/14012010/14Jan2010ReportDirectPatientReportingofADRsFINAL.pdf
Background info:
I came across the aforementioned article via this piece
One could argue that Rxisk is doing the same thing as MedWatch, the FDA's online gateway for "reporting serious problems with human medical products." But Kalman Applbaum, a Rxisk founder and professor of medical anthropology and global studies at the University of Wisconsin, argues that MedWatch isn't for patients - especially those "trying to sort out whether it's the drug or the illness that's causing the suffering."
"We felt there were a number of things that were lacking on most or all of the FDA sites that collect information about drug side-effects," said Applbaum. "First, there's a reliance on doctor reporting, and doctors report very little, very infrequently - and this is true all over the world for a variety of reasons. And what they report is extremely slim. Very common is a single word to describe a side effect, such as hypertension, ataxia, etc." Meanwhile, said Applbaum, research (http://www.haiweb.org/14012010/14Jan2010ReportDirectPatientReportingofADRsFINAL.pdf) shows that patients are much more motivated to report than doctors. And more importantly, "their reported data is very high quality data, because they spend a lot of time," said Applbaum.
Since the November 2012 launch, Rxisk has received only 10,000 visitors per month. But Healy, Applbaum and the other founders, like Nancy Olivieri, a senior scientist at Toronto General Hospital and University of Toronto Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Public Health Sciences, are not particularly concerned and plan to ramp up and market their efforts slowly. "We're doing something that's new and it's probably going to take awhile for people to cotton on to what's new about it," said Healy.
from: http://www.sott.net/article/262379-Meet-the-doctor-Big-Pharma-cant-shut-up
One reason I'm interested in this issue is to do with all the reports of patients saying that exercise programs of one type or another made them worse, but that this tending to be ignored.
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