The number of serious adverse drug events reported to the Food and Drug Administration is increasing:
* Reported errors more than doubled between 1998 (34,966 errors) and 2005 (89,842 errors).
* The number of fatal adverse drug events increased 2.7-fold during the same period.
* A total of 1,489 drugs were associated with adverse events, but just 20% of them were responsible for 87% of the adverse events.
* The medications most frequently implicated in deaths included oxycodone, fentanyl, clozapine, morphine, acetaminophen, methadone, infliximab, interferon beta, and etanercept.
The study reporting these findings was controlled for any increase in error
reporting, so the number of adverse drug events is indeed rising.
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