More Than 300 Regularly Prescribed Medicines Can Damage the Lungs
In many condition, we need to start weighing more heavily the risk vs benefit of commonly prescribed drugs. I truly believe, if careful attention was paid to the potential and actual side effects, and patients were given full disclosure of the harmful side effects, the high use of many pharmaceuticals would drop.
(article) The warning issued at the first World Congress on Lung Health and Respiratory Diseases in Florence is clear: there are hundreds of medicines routinely prescribed against a variety of disorders, including high blood pressure, allergies, rheumatism, certain cancers, and common nonrespiratory inflammations, that can cause all kinds of lung diseases. These accidents can happen within a very short time or after several years. They are mostly unpredictable and some are irreversible, leaving damaging after-effects. This was revealed at a postgraduate course on iatrogenic lung diseases presented by Professor Philippe Camus of the University Medical Centre of Dijon, France, who is also a member of the Clinical Assembly of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), organizer of the Congress. The researcher told his audience that so far 310 therapeutic substances have been identified as having such iatrogenic effects. “This means the number is really much greater if you consider that each active principle in a preparation is usually marketed in several different forms. The problem was practically unknown 25 years ago, but it is now taking on alarming proportions,” the French lung expert added. Yet the information provided with the packaging rarely warns patients that the medicine could potentially cause a lung disorder, and few doctors give the matter due thought when they prescribe a treatment. This is a pity, according to the specialists attending the World Congress in Florence, because in about 70% of cases, the early withdrawal of the medicine would increase the patient’s chances of avoiding the damaging sequelae, and very often the medicine concerned could simply be replaced with another. The Dijon team has posted their research on a Web site (http://www.pneumotox.com).