OTTAWAThe Conservative government could require doctors to report negative side effects that Canadians experience from prescription drugs as part of efforts to increase the oversight mediations after they hit the market. Were looking at whether or not we need to make some regulatory or legislative changes to mandate or compel information to come in, Dr. Supriya Sharma, a senior medical adviser and assistant deputy minister at Health Canada, told the Star in an interview Tuesday. A Star investigation into the safety of prescription drugs highlighted problems with the way Health Canada collects and analyzes reports of adverse drug reactions, as well as the secrecy surrounding what the regulator learns about whether the drugs are harmful, or if they work for some patients. Health Canada has traditionally relied upon manufacturers, distributors, doctors and ordinary Canadians to submit adverse drug reaction reports, but government studies have suggested it captures only a tiny fraction of the total side effects experienced by patients outside clinical trials and it can take up to two years for the federal regulator to issue a warning about it. Still, there is a lack of consensus over whether extending legal requirements to report adverse drug reactions to health-care practitioners … Continue reading →

Public release date: 16-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Bryan Alary bryan.alary@ualberta.ca 780-492-0436 University of Alberta (Edmonton) A University of Alberta researcher is thinking small to find innovative ways to improve the delivery of drugs that can be more easily administered with fewer side-effects. Afsaneh Lavasanifar, a professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, has developed and patented a polymer platform technology that can carry drugs to specific areas of the body at a nanoscopic scale. The polymeric nanostructures contain an outer shell and inner core that are capable of encapsulating drugs that the body normally has a hard time absorbing and processing. "Making drugs water soluble is a major problem in drug development," Lavasanifar says. "When drugs are not water soluble, they cannot be absorbed efficiently by the body or administered efficiently, making them ineffective." Lavasanifar developed the polymer over three years and published her initial findings in 2006. With support from TEC Edmonton, in 2010 she launched her own company, Meros Polymers, and currently serves as vice-president and chief science officer. The company secured a U.S. patent for the polymer late last year, with patents pending in Europe and Japan, and was recently named … Continue reading →

Apr. 17, 2013 A new review finds little difference between effectiveness of drugs routinely prescribed for migraine prevention but evident difference in the side-effects experienced. Migraine headaches are a major cause of ill health and a reduced quality of life. Some individuals suffer from a frequent and severe migraine problem which means that they require regular medication to try and prevent them. A new review of the medications, which may help to prevent episodic migraines, appears in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, published by Springer. The authors, Tatyana Shamliyan from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and her colleagues, compare published research on the drugs available to find those which offer the best migraine prevention coupled with the fewest adverse side-effects. Preventive treatments for migraines aim to reduce the number of migraines suffered by fifty percent. There are a number of different drugs commonly used, all of which may cause some side effects. The researchers carried out a review of studies which tested how well the different types of drugs worked and also their acceptability in terms of adverse effects suffered. The studies used enrolled mostly middle aged women with episodic migraine who suffered an average of … Continue reading →

Toronto, Canada (PRWEB) April 16, 2013 RxISK.org, the first free, independent website for researching and reporting prescription drug side effects, has added a Symptoms on Stopping (SoS) Zone to highlight and collect data on the side effects patients can experience when stopping a medication. "While many of us associate withdrawal with stopping things like cigarettes, heroin, or sleeping pills, we may not realize that commonly used prescription drugs for conditions such as high blood pressure, cholesterol, indigestion, and depression have withdrawal effects that can range from mild rebound symptoms to life-threatening crises", says RxISK Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dee Mangin. Users can report their experience and receive a personalized RxISK Report that assesses whether their symptoms are linked to stopping their medication, which they can take to their doctor or pharmacist. Dr. Dee Mangin says, For example, when stopping a proton-pump inhibitor like Losec for indigestion, there is a rebound of acid production in the stomach that can cause indigestion far worse than the original symptoms. This is just a rebound effect and will settle; however, it can be mistaken to mean that the patient still needs the drug. Similarly, stopping diuretics abruptly can cause rebound edema. And stopping some … Continue reading →