Is it ineptitude, or negligence?
It seems that the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. And the right hand? It started the whole problem to begin with.
That right hand just so happens to be the FDA, and it seems they've allowed a number of unapproved drugs to slide onto the market.
Turns out, there's one enormous glitch in the system: A 10-digit code that's the source of the potentially dangerous problem. This code is assigned to a drug prior to its approval, allowing it to be tracked through the approval process. Evidently though, it doesn't track these unapproved drugs as they make their escape out the door and into the inventory of pharmacies all across the country.
Your well-intentioned doctor writes you a script for a drug that's technically on the market, but unbeknownst to him, unapproved. Follow the line of reasoning. If it's unapproved, no one has yet determined its safety. Not to mention, you may be gagging down some pill that's completely ineffective. (You could lump a good many of the approved ones in that category, as well.)
And the pharmacists are none the wiser, either. Results from one survey done with pharmacists showed that nine out of 10 of them didn't realize they were filling prescriptions with drugs that weren't even approved yet by the FDA.
To add insult to potential nationwide injury, the FDA has flat-out refused to issue a list of exactly which drugs are on the market that have yet to make it through the approval process but are being sold anyway.
Also, the FDA finds it difficult to just remove these unapproved drugs from the market, citing that they are often "medically necessary." But how would they know that, if they haven't processed and approved them yet?
And just to show you the caliber of some of the manufacturers of these drugs, one pharmaceutical head honcho was quoted as saying that concerns about unapproved drugs are "overblown." This, while FDA representatives are readily admitting that some of these unapproved drugs that are still out there on the market could be downright dangerous.
Overblown?
You can't trust a pharmaceutical company any further than you can throw them, nor can you trust the FDA to do its job. It seems both have ridden on the coattails of a general assumption of safety on the part of doctors, pharmacists and patients alike.
Their attitude and inaction goes beyond negligent. I'd say it borders on downright criminal.
In the meantime, if you are curious about any drug that your doctor wants to prescribe for you—ask him to verify its safety record.
