The Side Effects of Drugs Annual was first published in 1977. It has been continually published since then, as a yearly update to the voluminous encyclopedia Meyler's Side Effects of Drugs. Each new Annual continues to provide clinicians and medical investigators with a reliable and critical yearly survey of new data and trends in the area of Adverse Drug Reactions and Interactions. An international team of specialists has contributed to the Annuals by selecting critically from each year's writing all that is truly new and informative, by critically interpreting it, and by pointing to whatever is misleading. - Provides a critical yearly survey of new data and trends - Includes an essay that describes the modern approach to classifying adverse drug reactions - Special reviews in this Annual include, among other topics: Antipsychotic drugs and now-onset diabetes mellitus, Treating asthma during pregnancy, and MMR vaccine and autism

Meyler's Side Effects of Drugs: The International Encyclopedia of Adverse Drug Reactions and Interactions, Sixteenth Edition, Seven Volume Set builds on the success of the 15 previous editions, providing an extensively reorganized and expanded resource that now comprises more than 1,500 individual drug articles with the most complete coverage of adverse reactions and interactions found anywhere. Each article contains detailed and authoritative information about the adverse effects of each drug, with comprehensive references to the primary literature, making this a must–have reference work for any academic or medical library, pharmacologist, regulatory organization, hospital dispensary, or pharmaceutical company. The online version of the book provides an unparalleled depth of coverage and functionality by offering convenient desktop access and enhanced features such as increased searchability, extensive internal cross-linking, and fully downloadable and printable full-text, HTML or PDF articles. Enhanced encyclopedic format with drug monographs now organized alphabetically Completely expanded coverage of each drug, with more than 1,500 drug articles and information on adverse reactions and interactions Clearer, systematic organization of information for easier reading, including case histories to provide perspective on each listing Extensive bibliography with over 40,000 references A must–have reference work for any academic or medical library, pharmacologist, regulatory organization, hospital dispensary, or pharmaceutical company

Understanding risk -- Putting risk in perspective -- Risk charts : a way to get perspective -- Judging the benefit of a health intervention -- Not all benefits are equal : understand the outcome -- Consider the downsides -- Do the benefits outweight the downsides? -- Beware of exaggerated importance -- Beware of exaggerated certainty -- Who's behind the numbers?

A good alternative to PDR for the layman wanting to check on pharmaceuticals. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Few people realize that prescription drugs have become a leading cause of death, disease, and disability. Adverse reactions to widely used drugs, such as psychotropics and birth control pills, as well as biologicals, result in FDA warnings against adverse reactions. The Risks of Prescription Drugs describes how most drugs approved by the FDA are under-tested for adverse drug reactions, yet offer few new benefits. Drugs cause more than 2.2 million hospitalizations and 110,000 hospital-based deaths a year. Serious drug reactions at home or in nursing homes would significantly raise the total. Women, older people, and people with disabilities are least used in clinical trials and most affected. Health policy experts Donald Light, Howard Brody, Peter Conrad, Allan Horwitz, and Cheryl Stults describe how current regulations reward drug companies to expand clinical risks and create new diseases so millions of patients are exposed to unnecessary risks, especially women and the elderly. They reward developing marginally better drugs rather than discovering breakthrough, life-saving drugs. The Risks of Prescription Drugs tackles critical questions about the pharmaceutical industry and the privatization of risk. To what extent does the FDA protect the public from serious side effects and disasters? What is the effect of giving the private sector and markets a greater role and reducing public oversight? This volume considers whether current rules and incentives put patients' health at greater risk, the effect of the expansion of disease categories, the industry's justification of high U.S. prices, and the underlying shifts in the burden of risk borne by individuals in the world of pharmaceuticals. Chapters cover risks of statins for high cholesterol, SSRI drugs for depression and anxiety, and hormone replacement therapy for menopause. A final chapter outlines six changes to make drugs safer and more effective. Suitable for courses on health and aging, gender, disability, and minority studies, this book identifies the Risk Proliferation Syndrome that maximizes the number of people exposed to these risks. Additional Columbia / SSRC books on the privatization of risk and its implications for Americans: Bailouts: Public Money, Private ProfitEdited by Robert E. Wright Disaster and the Politics of InterventionEdited by Andrew Lakoff Health at Risk: America's Ailing Health System-and How to Heal ItEdited by Jacob S. Hacker Laid Off, Laid Low: Political and Economic Consequences of Employment InsecurityEdited by Katherine S. Newman Pensions, Social Security, and the Privatization of RiskEdited by Mitchell A. Orenstein

"This book has been divided into three main sections. Part I deals with global issues that bear on the assessment and formulation of possible adverse effects and with pertinent concepts related to basic pharmacology, physiology, and medical monitoring. The chapters in Part II present information organized by individual organ systems or specific medical circumstances rather than by drugs or drug classes. This approach seems to provide a logical and comprehensible format that allow readers to search out information as referenced by a particular side effect (and its varied potential causes) and to locate a discussion of practical management strategies. Part III focuses on summary recommendations covering all the material presented in the book and is followed by helpful appendixes on self-assessment questions and resources for practitioners. The book is meant to serve as a ready reference that simultaneously provides scientific and scholarly discussion of available treatment options and presents their scientific rationales."--page xx.

In line with other volumes in the Neuroscience Perspectives Series, this volume covers the background, pharmacology, molecular biology, and biochemistry of antipsychotic drugs, together with an overview assessment of the therapeutic considerations. Over the past 40 years, the effectiveness of conventional neuroleptic agents for psychotic illness has been offset by a wide range of adverse side-effects, including motor side-effects like parkinsonism. Studies show that lowering doses may still produce the antipsychotic effect while lessening the risk of side-effects. As all available antispychotic drugs are able to block dopamine, specifically D2 receptors, doses below the threshold level for producing acute motor disorder can still be therapeutically effective. With the identification and characterization of multiple dopamine receptors, the possibility of more selective drugs with better side-effect potential has arisen. Other novel antipsychotic agents include D1 receptor blockers, partial dopamine agonists and non-dopamine drugs such as 5-HT receptor blockers, sigma receptor antagonists and NMDA receptor agonists. This volume reviews both the basic science of the conventional and atypical neuroleptics and their present and potential therapeutic use.