PHYSICIANS SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE TO READ THE FINE PRINT WHEN PRESCRIBING NEW DRUGS

It's one of the thorniest issues in all of medicine: How to teach doctors the pros and cons of the dozens of new drugs that hit the market each year. A drug that's safe for one person can kill the next; it largely depends on how each patient's risk factors match each drug's side-effects.

The problem, according to the Food and Drug Administration, is that too many doctors never read the warning labels of drugs they prescribe, especially new ones. Over the past three years, the FDA has banned four drugs that killed dozens of Americans in part because doctors disregarded or never read the warnings.

Now the FDA is overhauling hard-to-read drug labels, hoping a new system similar to how foods are labeled will make it easier for doctors to spot the biggest risks. "Our interest is the clinician who has 30 seconds to make that prescribing decision," says FDA chief Dr. Janet Woodcock. "They need something right in front of them."

According to the Associated Press story on this problem, a drug's label is actually pages of tiny print mixing explanations of the drug's chemistry with how well it works and its side-effects. Some doctors read these labels, but many say they're too busy and instead learn about new drugs from pharmaceutical salesmen unlikely to stress risks.

Surely our present system of tort law can operate efficiently to hold responsible physicians who fail to act responsibly in reading labels of the medicines they prescribe. More than likely, the AP article detailing this problem, like much other media scaremongering, overstated the extent of this "crisis." Responsible physicians we know aren't getting into trouble on this issue, but when they do, can certainly expect a lawsuit to follow.