Next time you get a prescription filled, look at the label very carefully. Getting the wrong drug or the wrong dosage kills hundreds or thousands of people each year, with many times that number getting injured.
Poor handwriting. Verbal orders. Ambiguous orders. Prescribing errors. Failure to write
orders. Unapproved uses. When the order is not modified or cancelled. Look-alike and
sound-alike drug names. Dangerous abbreviations. Faulty drug distribution systems in
hospital. Failure to read the label or poor labeling. Lack of knowledge about drugs. Lack of
knowledge concerning proper dose.
Even higher than the number of people who die from medication errors is the number of people who die from medication, period. Even when a prescription drug is dispensed properly, there's no guarantee it won't end up killing you.
Besides doctors' indecipherable chicken scratch, similar-sounding drug names are another big culprit. Pharmaceutical companies have even started warning medical professionals to be careful with the cookie-cutter names of their products. In a typical example, Celebrex, Cerebyx, Celexa,and Zyprexa sometimes get confused. (Respectively, they're used to treat arthritis, seizures,depression, and psychosis.)
