Health scare of the week
All medications have the potential to cause serious side effects—a fact that people seeking relief from pain and disease symptoms often forget. But as Americans take more and more medications, reports of “adverse events’’ are soaring, says the Los Angeles
All medications have the potential to cause serious side effects—a fact that people seeking relief from pain and disease symptoms often forget. But as Americans take more and more medications, reports of “adverse events’’ are soaring, says the Los Angeles Times. Nearly 90,000 bad drug reactions were reported in 2005, with many resulting in hospitalization and 15,100 ending in death. Those numbers have tripled since 1998, when the FDA made it easier for consumers to report side effects of their prescription drugs. Nearly nine out of 10 of the adverse reactions were attributed to just
20 percent of the drugs, some of which are commonly prescribed painkillers and immune system suppressants for arthritis. Five of the six drugs that caused the most deaths were painkillers: OxyContin, Fentanyl, morphine, acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol), and methadone. These same painkillers, along with estrogens, insulin, warfarin (an anti-clotting medication), and Paroxetine (an antidepressant), caused the most nonfatal adverse reactions. “The clear finding is that we are losing ground in terms of drug safety,” says Thomas J. Moore of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices. “That ought to be of great concern.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Gandhi arrests: Narendra Modi's 'vendetta' against India's opposition
The Explainer Another episode threatens to spark uproar in the Indian PM's long-running battle against the country's first family
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK
-
How the woke right gained power in the US
Under the radar The term has grown in prominence since Donald Trump returned to the White House
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK
-
Codeword: April 24, 2025
The Week's daily codeword puzzle
By The Week Staff