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Businesswoman:
"For many, the decision to come to a
place like Novus can be a scary one and you may be
apprehensive and wondering what is in store for
you. Speaking from personal recent
experience, please rest assured that you are in really
good hands. Every single person who
works at Novus genuinely cares about you and wants to
see you succeed and they will work very hard with you to
help you regain your health and your peace of
mind. You have definitely made a good
decision in coming here!
The food was
incredible. I was extremely impressed
with everyone's willingness to accommodate my Vegan
dietary habits and the delicious and beautifully
presented menu selections prepared just for me were most
appreciated and enjoyed. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
The facility is extremely clean
and comfortable and I felt very much at
home. Your furnishings are very
tastefully done and I was impressed with your attention
to detail.
I am looking forward to returning to my
pre-pain pill days of optimum health.
Thank you for helping me achieve this important
goal in my life."
Accountant:
"Your low pressure and sincere
approach to your patient's progress and well being was
truly the difference between Facility and any other
treatment facility I have ever experienced.
As I told
several of your staff, I had been clean for 16 years but
relapsed due to surgery. I found the
positive approach to the patients very
sincere. The constant desire to help
us was extremely beneficial to my attitude for
recovery.
The fact that I was allowed to keep things
like my phone and laptop helped tremendously to reduce
stress related to my family and business.
As a result, my time spent on focusing on my
recovery was much more productive; stress-free.
The
food was great.
You have a great
staff (All included) that exceeded my expectations at
every level.
I will highly
recommend your facility and philosophy to
others."
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AN EASY WAY TO REPORT
ADVERSE DRUG REACTIONS
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TELEVISION
ADS
All of
us see an endless stream of television ads showing
happy, attractive people who no longer have the aches,
pains or allergies which were ruining their lives before
they took a wonderful pill manufactured by a drug
company. It is interesting that only the United
States and New Zealand force their citizens to see this
advertising of prescription drugs directed at
patients. The European Union is being extensively
lobbied by the drug companies but has not removed its
ban on television ads for drugs.
Why do drug companies spend
billions of dollars on these ads? They work.
Since most people spend much more time watching
television than they ever spend with their doctor,
consumers are strongly influenced by these ads.
Doctors are reporting more and more patients are
demanding that they prescribe the drugs that they saw on
television.
One Novus patient related to
us how television drug ads affected her. She went
to her doctor and asked to be prescribed a drug that she
saw advertised on television. The ad showed people
who were happy and no longer bothered by the condition
bothering the patient. She said that yes, she sort
of heard the side effects listed at the end of the
commercial but assumed that her doctor, who she had been
seeing for years, would not allow her to take something
that would be harmful.
She recounts taking the
drug and experiencing headaches, one of the side effects
listed on the drug label and stated at the end of the
commercial. When she called the doctor, he didn't
take her off the drug but simply prescribed another drug
to treat the headaches.
Unfortunately, this new
drug created dizziness and rather than be alarmed, the
doctor prescribed another drug for dizziness. By
the time the patient arrived at Novus, she was hooked on
five drugs and had no life. After she got off the
drugs and was feeling better for the first time in
years, she was very upset. She wanted to report
the side effects of these drugs to the FDA, but this is
not an easy process and she eventually just dropped the
idea.
EXISTING
LAW
Under
existing law, reporting harmful side effects is left to
hospitals and doctors and the drug companies. This
is clearly not working well. According to the
Consumers Union, in 2005 only 465,000 reports of adverse
drug reactions were collected by the FDA, even though
adverse drug reactions account for nearly 700,000
emergency room visits each year. Based on pharmacy
records and other data, it has been estimated that
millions of people suffer such serious side effects that
they stop taking a drug. However, this information
is rarely reported and is thus not being made available
to the FDA, the medical community, and the
public.
Since the clinical trials required by the FDA to
obtain drug approval normally involve no more than 3,000
carefully selected people, the actual tests of a drug
don't really take place until the drug is used by the
general public, and the true side effects often come to
light only after the drug has been on the market for
some time. Doesn't it seem logical that side effects of
a drug should be reported by the public so that
dangerous drugs can be more quickly withdrawn before
they harm even more people?
The Food and
Drug Administration Revitalization Act passed in
September of 2007 took a step toward this reporting, but
it doesn't go far enough. The new law requires
that all drug print ads include information on how to
report side effects and other adverse drug
reactions.
However, the decision to
make the drug companies include the same information in
their television ads was not ordered-thanks to intensive
drug company lobbying. Instead, the law instructed
the FDA to conduct a study by March of 2008 to determine
if such information about how to report side effects
with a toll-free number and on the internet should also
be included in television ads.
This is disturbing because
FDA officials have admitted it does not really see
the public as its clients. Instead, the drug
companies' payments to the FDA for drug approvals are
making up a larger and larger portion of the FDA's
budget and are who the FDA is really
serving.
It may seem cynical to you, but companies that
pay in excess of $1 billion in settlements to consumers
harmed by their drugs and still keep those same drugs on
the market are not likely to be in favor of anything
that allows the millions of adverse reactions and side
effects to their new drugs to become public
information. I'm sure the drug companies are
confident that the FDA will decide that the information
about reporting side effects and adverse drug reactions
of the drugs advertised does not need to be included in
the television ads.
If the FDA were to
receive millions of complaints about a drug, then it
would be forced to take immediate action-not delay for
years and allow the drug companies to make billions more
in profits before the drugs are finally
withdrawn.
SOLUTION
Since it is predictable that
the FDA will attempt to avoid making the reporting of
adverse drug reactions easier, the Consumers Union,
publisher of Consumer Reports, has been circulating a
petition that demands the FDA require the television ads
to include a toll-free number and web address so the
public can easily report adverse events. Consumers
can sign the petition by logging onto
www.PrescriptionforChange.org, a website of Consumers
Union.
With easier reporting of
dangerous side effects of the drugs, many lives will be
saved and untold misery will be avoided.
I have signed and certainly
encourage you to sign the
petition.
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