The number of prescriptions has swelled by two-thirds over the past decade to 3.5 billion yearly, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical consulting company. Americans devour even more nonprescription drugs, polling suggests.
Well over 125,000 Americans die from drug reactions and mistakes each year, according to Associated Press projections from landmark medical studies of the 1990s. That could make pharmaceuticals the fourth-leading national cause of death after heart disease, cancer and stroke.
"We are taking way too many drugs for dubious or exaggerated ailments," says Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicineand author of "The Truth About the Drug Companies."
Around the country, prescription drug sales have pushed relentlessly upward by an annual average of 11 percent over the past five years.
The aging population is partly at fault, with its attendant ailments like cancer, heart attacks, stroke and Alzheimer's disease. Other conditions have mysteriously proliferated, including asthma, diabetes and obesity.
Exercise and better diet ward off heart disease and diabetes just as effectively as drugs do, studies show. However, says Fred Eckel, who teaches pharmacy practice at the University of North Carolina, "There tends to be a reliance on drugs as the first option."
Drug advertising to consumers has also boomed since the late 1990s, thanks largely to relaxed government restrictions on television spots.
Courtesy of Jeff Donn, Associated Press 4/18/2005
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