Doctors, Patients Wrestle With Drug Risks

ByABC News
March 2, 2005, 1:06 PM

March 10, 2005 — -- A new animated video finds something novel in the current debate over drug safety: humor.

The musical video, titled "The Drugs I Need," lampoons Americans' willingness to pop a pill for whatever ails them, and the drug industry's efforts to satisfy that urge.

The video was produced by Consumers Union, an independent, nonprofit product testing group and publisher of Consumer Reports magazine. The video's release was timed to coincide with a bill currently before Congress that would require manufacturers to make information on drug trials available to the public.

But at the heart of the comic video lies a serious question: When it comes to drugs, do consumers have realistic expectations?

"We don't have realistic expectations right out of the chute," said Dr. Marc Siegel, an internist and associate professor of medicine at the New York University Medical School.

Siegel, author of the upcoming book "False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear," believes patients expect too much from new prescription medications, only to have their hopes crushed when unexpected side effects occur.

"The public often doesn't have a sophisticated enough view of drugs," he said. "They go from panacea to panic."

Siegel acknowledges doctors, too, can succumb to pressure from patients and drug companies to prescribe the newest drugs available, even when they may not be appropriate or necessary for a patient.

"The problem I feel is that we take the drugs too often and we prescribe them too readily," he said.

The solution, Siegel believes, lies in appreciating the fact that all drugs come with risks and benefits. Too often, drugs are used by the wrong patients for too long and at too high a dose.

"These drugs are not villains and they're not heroes," Siegel said. "It all comes under the perspective of finding the right niche for a drug."

Whether the issue is medicine or any other consumer good, the public makes choices using a combination of information and intuition, says David Ropeik, director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis in Boston.